Jar with silver lid

Please help me.

I have recently purchased a thin glass jar/bottle with a lovely silver lid from an antique shop in Australia.

It has the markings on top “VW” and the hallmarkings of WHW, then an anchor, a lion (facing to the left) and the letter “a” (in lower case) on the side of the lid.

I paid $20.00 Australian dollars for it.

I was wondering if not only could someone tell me what period it is from but also have i been given a bargain or paid too much for it?

A reply would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Hi, thanks for joining us on silver-collector.com.
From the marks you have described I would say the silver lid is sterling silver, (the lion mark is the mark that shows it has been tested for purity and was found to be 92.5% pure), and the anchor mark is the mark showing your item was tested for purity in Birmingham (in England). However I will need to see a close up pic of the hallmarks to tell you how old the piece is and to work out who the maker is.

If you read Jonathan’s section on how to photograph silver hallmarks and then upload some pics I will tell you more about it.

Best regards
Daniel Franks

Thank you for your reply.

Please see links below for hallmarks on the bottle.

martineadie.com/bottle/bottle1.jpg

martineadie.com/bottle/bottle2.jpg

martineadie.com/bottle/bottle3.jpg

I hope this helps you in determining where it originally came from and possibly how much its worth.

Rowena

Thanks Rowena,
I was right in thinking your jar was made in Birmingham (the anchor mark) and is sterling silver (the lion passant mark). The date letter ‘a’ is the date letter for 1900, so your item is late Victorian in date. The makers mark looks like that of W. H. Walter, whose mark was registered in 1895.

I think that $20 Australian Dollars is a very good price to pay for a Victorian dressing table jar, I would estimate its worth to be around £35 GBP (around $85 Australian dollars), so I would say you bought a bargian!

I hope this helps
Best regards
Daniel

Thank you for your reply.

I am always glad to hear i purchased a bargain.

Regards,

Rowena