Hi, I am totally new to silver and know nothing about hallmarks. I bought this in an antique shop in Perth, Scotland about 18 years ago. I was well into my heavy metal music at the time and this fitted in well with the paraphernalia I was wearing at the time. Over the past 10 years it has been an ornament but for unknown reasons have started becoming curious about it’s origins.
It has 3 hallmarks: the one on the left I cannot distinguish. It looks like a “C” made up of small dots? the middle one looks like a dog or cat and the one on the right is a capital “M”.
Any help or theories would be very much appreciated.
Sorry, thanks for tip. Thought it would be possible for people to zoom in on the image. Have posted a close up of the hallmarks, still not great quality but best I can get.
Am getting more intrigued as I delve further. I read that the use of letters to mark dates on British silverware stopped in 1544, This has the letter “M” on it which would mean that if this is British made it is over 450 years old???
Not that I have any reason to believe it is British…?
Well not the best pix of the marks but from what I can see they read Egyptian, pre 1940, the mark on the far right would tell you the purity and the city of origin but I cant make it out . ,
Thankyou for your help, at least Egyptian gives me a starting point. The symbol on the far right is a capitol “M” I just wish I could make out the one on the left.
Left city and assayer mark - purity mark. 700 800 ot 900 purity but I cannot read the mark.
Middle National mark - the cat mark was replaced with the lotus mark in 1946.
Right year mark The roman letters replaced arabic letters in 1940
so your piece is made between 1940 ans 1946. In egypt.
