Friends, when I look at my two little demitasse or mocca spoons with the bowls blue-enamelled on the back and also on the stem, I get the blues myself, because I cannot establish who the maker is. They are of the type bought in sets, having various designs. Must have been a sought-after item in the day, so I imagine, as they are so pretty, with inside-gilded bowls and all. Hallmarked Birmingham, sterling silver and date letter X = 1922.
Now the maker is marked H.C.P in an uneven rectangular shield, but the meagre number of books I have, give no clue as to what these initials stand for. Even Mr. Google seems not to know, or I just haven’t been punching the right buttons?
I’ve tried to get you a good pic ot the maker’s mark, and this the best I can come up with - sorry!
Any advice, please.
Regards. Jan.
This is actually HCD - Henry Clifford Davis.
Phil
Thank you, Phil, you really bailed me out here! With your showing me my mistake, you opened a flood of info that I could look up.
You will have noted from my previous posts that I like to summarize the outcome of my posting before signing out and perhaps beginning a fresh post. I do that as a contribution to the readability and user-friendliness of this, our forum.
So what I have learned is that Henry C Davis was a prolific maker and his work seems to have been eagerly sought. The spoons were available in little boxed sets, and the colours were not identical, but were provided in colour-pairs. So the two blue-enameled spoons I have came out of a box that had six spoons having three colours. Also, Davis worked deep into the 1950s, I think, so my two spoons dated 1922 must have been among his early work. The crude appearance of the maker’s mark on my spoons might be ascribed to the less-than-good quality of the first punches that he used. How else can the poor readability of the mark be explained?
Anyhow, thank you for setting me straight and may this forum prosper!
Regards. Jan.