I have an old silver ladle with a series of hallmarks. I have not seen the exact combination while searching around. Any help identifying it would be greatly appreciated!
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Welcome aboard Johnny, the EP at the top indicates that it’s Electro Plated, otherwise not solid silver . Hope this helps 
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‘Electroplate. Probably Elkington & Co, Sheffield, UK post 1843, pre 1875 when the Crown use was outlawed. Sort of .
I suspect this is a very early mark as it has EP for Electro/Elkington plate rather than E & Co for the company.
Here’s another forum dealing with the question on the same mark:
https://www.925-1000.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13997&sid=a7e9677b06c167ffbc660ff94d72e3a3
I have not found these marks elsewhere and have no personal knowledge of the EP sub crown combo being employed but Elkingtons created the industrial use of an electroplating system and were just arrogant enough to have done exactly that. They didn’t invent it.
So someone else reading this may be also to provide a similar image example from elsewhere.
The other possibility is the entire faux fake hallmark is a scam on what what was, after all, an imitation of a genuine assays mark designed to make the buyer think he was getting something of great value for a fraction of the price of solid .925 silver.
So this then would be a case where it being an early item or a faux item, but I think earlier, makes it worth more than the common-or-garden Elkington plate.
The K/R might be date letters and the hambone in the shape of an H under the universal sign for female is probably just signs and portents..
Christopher R W Wilson
Guildhall Antiques.
PS, since I started researching this for you another rather braver valued contributor has been able to make the leap I couldn’t and determine EP under Crown invariably stands for Electroplate. While I have never known it not do, in my world of proof rather than presumption, failure to prove a negative doesn’t get you to a positive merely supports the absence of a negative.
So I’d still like to see which plater used the mark. Almost certainly Elkington & Co, but who knows.
Faux silver marks are an area I tread in very carefully.
CRWW
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I think you’ve got it! Not to sound too Professor Higgins-ish. And being make by John Round takes care of the R mark.
Unfortunately your logic takes care of my somewhat more fanciful theory about pre- E&C0 in a shield below a crown marks.
Even the hambone has now been accounted for given you and Phil are right.
Unfortunately the Silver Collection site didn’t update when Silver Makers Marks first arrived at this since-then-undisputed assertion.
CRWW
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Thank you so much for giving me a window into its possible origins and the difficulties with assessing its authenticity and provenance.
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Welcome, but the effort was not mine. I got it wrong. Everybody else got it right.
Silver plate probably doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Mostly because the Americans flooded the late 19th century market.
CRWW
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