I am looking at some family spoons, and I don’t see a location marker. I gather that’s quite common for smaller articles, but means I am stuck on figuring out the date and maker marks. Is ES Edward Smith of Birmingham? I might have expected from family history that these would be Scottish, but I don’t see it. Thanks for any help!
The face in the hallmark does not match any UK origin as far as I know. Perhaps it is a hallmark from some British colony that used the English standard of hallmark. And I don’t believe it’s from Birmingham, because if it were it would have an anchor for a face.
These are pseudo-marks, typically used on Chinese export silver or early North American silver. In this case the maker is identified here as Edmund Lloyd Spike of Halifax, Nova Scotia, active during the second part of the 19th century.
Phil
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Oh yes! That’s it exactly. Lovely to have a clearer origin for these, thank you. It’s too bad the Nova Scotia smiths didn’t use year marks so that I could just look up the year in which these were made, but I would never have found the right silversmith without help.
Phil, is this item solid silver or plated?
Almost certainly solid, but with no guaranteed standard.
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