Can anyone tell me anything about this item? It belonged to my parents, and I think it was a wedding present to them in 1940. I always called it a cake stand, but I see there are similar things called tazzas. It’s about 16cm tall, and 20cm diameter.
Hallmarks show an anchor, a lion and a lower case y. The maker’s mark is indistinct. It looks like a M then another letter that might be H, with i think C and O below.
Thanks for any info, Richard
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Birmingham sterling silver hallmark, date letter y for 1923/24. Maker’s/sponsor’s mark of Martin, Hall & Co Ltd of Sheffield:
Tazza is just a posh name for a cake stand.
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---- A pointless AI-assisted reply with a commercial link deleted by moderator ----
Wow! Did you ever get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.
The response was accurate and useful. It tells the inquirer what the item is, who made it and when.
Tazzas actully started out about four hundred years ago as cups and the name derives from the French la tasse or cup.
Had it been an AI prompted response the question would have been answered in this fashion taking the French for cup back to the Italian and then the Arabic for bowl.
The word “tazza” originates from Italian, meaning “cup,” derived from Arabic and Persian roots, referring to a stemmed, shallow dish used for drinking, serving sweets/fruit, or decoration, with ancient origins (like the Roman Farnese Cup) but becoming prominent in Renaissance Italy and later England as silver “salvers,” evolving from ornate vessels to functional table pieces.
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