can you help me ID this mark on a matchbox?

British Silver Reading Silver Hallmarks
1

Can you help me ID this mark? It is from a silver case that would hold a box of wooden matches. It is from a house in New England in the US, but many items in the house came form the UK. It is looks like a horse with one hoof on top of a shield, except if you look closely the hoof looks claw-like…the animal looks like it COULD be double-headed but not sure.

Thanks!
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matchboxwhole_882.png

2

Are there any other marks? The one which you show appears to be an armorial (sometimes incorrectly called a coat of arms) and would be specific to a family, probably the original owners of the matchbox holder. The animal is a lion, a common heraldic device.

3

Thanks so much for that info. I see now it is obviously a Lion.

On the other side of the box is inscribed “Hand-Made.” That’s it.

With that limited info, is there any way to guess the age of the box? whether it is British? Scottish? American? anything else?

Thanks again!

4

I have added your picture of the whole matchbox holder from your duplicate post in the “What’s it worth?” section, deleted the post and deleted your other duplicate post in the “Reading American Silver Hallmarks” so that we can keep everything relevant in one place.

I think that there is virtually no chance that we can get any further with any sort of identification unless someone has a duplicate and knows its history. “Hand-made” implies a small production run. It is also notable that there is no indication of what it is made of. Give it the polishing it needs and see if you think it is silver.