Can you help? Unidentified Hallmarks!

British Silver Reading Silver Hallmarks
1

Hi fellow silver enthusiasts!

Found this lovely item but can’t determine whether it’s solid silver or plate. I’d also love to know a bit of history on the item, so if anyone can help I’d be most appreciative.

Thanks a million in advance!
Spankyb
hallmarks.jpg

2

Hi there spankyb. After reading your message I did a bit of investigating and think I have a answer for you. The hallmarks are saying that the silver used for the item was imported into SHEFFIELD between 1904-06. The last hallmark (the criss cross pattern) is the import mark for sheffield. All imported items had to have a mark showing how much gold or in your case silver was in the product. Gold items had a rectangular shape with a number while silver items had a oval shape with a number. Theres obviously going to be more carrots in gold so there numbers would be 9.35 for example but in your case your item has .92 carrots (if silver has carrots that is), but you get my drift. The hallmark between your number and imported hallmark is obviously the stirling silver mark. Now for the first hallmark I really had to do some research but this is what I found. In 1697, all the hallmarks for silver were changed (long story) Within this process a new cycle of date letters were started. Instead of the makers initials, they started to use the first two letters of his or her surname. Thats what the small A and R are above the W. Now im not 100% of what the W is. usually the letter represents the date the product was made , so if you think about it the last hallmark is telling you that your item was imported between 1904-06 which means it would have to be made before that so according to my book the W relates to the date 1889-90 but as I said im not 100% sure. If I were you I would take it to a specialist and see what they think. If you do I would love to know if the info I gave you was correct in anyway. I hope this information can be of some use.

IainB

3

Believe that’s a set of pewter marks that were used on items made by “Sheffield Mint”
The 92 mark is a verification / quality mark indicating at least 92% tin.