I am attaching a picture of our silverware hallmark.
We are pretty sure they were manufactured in Europe somewhere between early to mid 1900s. They were purchased privately in Romania around 1940s
would really appreciate if you could help us identify the manufacturer of these pieces or at least help us narrow down the search.
Also to mention that the knives have stainless steel blades with the German inscription for stainless steel: “ROSTFREI”. In the attached picture the number 139 is variable, each fork having its own number. The number 38 however is common to all units and is also found on the knife’s handle. Some serving pieces (bottom) as well as the knives have the rectangle stamp with the number 800 in it.
thank you,
metricus
I added another picture of some samples maybe it helps with the ID.
Also it seems that the purchase date I gave was wrong. It may be as late as 1960s. They were however purchased privately so the manufacturing date is unrelated to the year of purchase.
I am no expert but the blades seem to be very good quality (polished) stainless steel which tells me that they cannot be too old. I have no idea however when these kind of blades appeared in silverware.
hmmm… I’m struggling with this…
The 800 mark means the piece is 800 standard, which is to say 80% silver.
Stainless steel is first used in flatware in around 1920. But the early stainless was not really ‘stainless’ and in fact is often covered in marks. Your knife blade looks so bright that it seems like a post sixties stainless steel blade. However, this does not tell us much as the blades may have been replaced at some time. One test to try is this, hold the knife blade at the top and try tapping the handle with something metal (like a ring if you wear one). Let me know whether the handle sounds filled or hollow.
The mark with the crown in a triangle is very similar to the Romanian hallmarks used between 1937 to 1949. But these have either an ‘A’ or ‘10’ written underneath the crown whereas yours appears to have ‘F’.
I can’t find any bird mark that is a good match. Nor can I find a good match for the crescent moon and star.
Let me know what the knife sounds like and in the meantime, I will show the marks to some of my colleagues.
Regards / Jonathan
The handles are definitely filled. In fact one of my aunts tried cleaning her knifes in hot water with some solution some old lady told her… you don’t want to know.
What she got is that some blades came out and apparently a sandy type filling came out of the handles which she says has hardened once the knifes cooled down. I did not see the result of this “wonderful” doing but you don’t want to know what she heard from me…
I am pretty sure that the blades were imported from Germany. Some other knifes have actually a Solingen marking on them. (they belong to my aunt and I don’t have a picture yet). So there is no doubt that they are good quality but I wonder if from the blade’s marking I could get some idea of the period. I will try to get a picture.
I’m still working on this but no luck so far. I’ll post something soon…