Please help with these unclear hallmarkets
Thank you so much for this wonderful help. Does this hallmarkets
mean silver plating, or what does it signify? I didn't understand them
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What does it mean? Is it silver or silver-plated? I apologize, but I don't understand quickly
I give up because I’m not used to serving a ready-made dish on a plate when someone doesn’t want to use their brain…
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I apologize, but I'm using Google Translate. That's why it was difficult for me to understand. I found that the lion means it's silver, and that the country of origin is Beni Suef, and the date of manufacture is also mentioned, but I'm not sure if it's solid silver or what it means
Silver, 600. __—__–__—______________________
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Egyptian silver hallmarks are official stamps used to certify the purity and origin of silver items in Egypt.
Introduced in the 19th century, these hallmarks, as Bart was explaining, typically include three key symbols: a fineness mark indicating the silver purity, a date letter representing the year of assay, and a national mark, often a lotus flower or cat to signify Egypt.
The silver purity is .600 or higher, with .900 being common. Cairo has historically been the main assay office.
These hallmarks help authenticate and date silver items, adding value and historical context for collectors and enthusiasts. The marks are never to be applied to silver plate.
But because the dates when marks were introduced and when they were actually used seems to float a bit under British Colonial rule, it can get very confusing.
That wretched cat for instance. Would you believe someone sitting over drinks in Shepheard Hotel in Cairo decided with a Colonial Office civil servant that the lion, which had been used for centuries in the Ottoman empire, to denote silver, would be disallowed because of the British lion on sterling, and reduced the Egyptians to a domestic cat modelled, so the story goes, to a “good mouser” seen in the hotel kitchens and a favourite with staff and patrons at the hotel.
Now both the cat and the Brits are gone and a lotus flower marks .600 or better.
Here’s a frequent and very useful contributor to this forum answering exactly your question on another forum which you may find helps
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/egyptian-silver-marks.36018/#google_vignette
The other thing which this board member points out is, like the Indian marks, the Egyptian marks are very often on the pessimistic side. In other words the silver content is routinely higher than the mark stipulates it might be.
The most famous ancient Egyptian silver items are the bracelets of Queen Hetepheres I which featured butterfly designs inlaid with turquoise, lapis lazuli, and carnelian.
Silver was rarer and more valuable than gold in ancient Egypt. Old Kingdom pieces, along with the later silver coffin of King Psusennes I, are considered priceless artifacts of unmatched craftsmanship.
Also more valuable than gold back then was lapus lazuli which came primarily from the Sar-i Sang mines in the Badakhshan province of modern-day Afghanistan, with the material traveling some 3,000 miles via ancient trade routes to reach the Nile. This deep blue, prized material was imported from at least the 4th millennium BC.
Ancient Egyptians did value gold, considering it the divine, indestructible “flesh of the gods” and a symbol of the sun. However, because it was relatively plentiful in Egypt and Nubia sometimes described as "more plentiful than dirt’ it was not as scarce as silver. Silver was considered more precious because it was rarer in Egypt.
Gold was accessible in the Eastern Desert and Nubia, making it common enough to be used for grand temples, tombs, and elite jewelry, rather than just as a rare currency.
But that was all nearly five thousand years ago. I haven’t been back to Egypt since the1960’s, but I used to be able to buy excellent silver in the bazaars in Alexandria.
One day while haggling over some drinking vessels which were optimistically priced as early, I was given some advice.
" He doesn’t want your British money he wants your car."
As I need the car to get to Damascus when I was to be discharged, this was a tough trade.
Seeing as how I wasn’t parting with the car, an aged Austin Seven with crank start only, and the silver seller didn’t like British money, we were at an impasse.
My ad hoc advisor said he was Syrian and offered to split the petrol (gas). And thus began a story which put Ahmed and I in a Turkish lockup triggered by another spurned offer for the car, this time trading two camels and a young girl. We declined. Camels being even less comfortable than aged Austins and girls, even very skinny ones needing feeding on short available rations. We discovered later her actual task was, after the Bedouins had secured the car, to leave with the camels returning them to the sellers and we would have been walking.
CRWW
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Oh, thank you so much, this explanation was wonderful for me
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If I ever decide to bring any silver questions to this forum, I sure hope I get Guildhall to answer them, not Bartholomew. (just sayin’)
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Tears of emotion filled my eyes (just sayin’).
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Bart and I have a completely different approach to silver. He can find makers and identify strange marks I can’t even see leave alone identify.
I, on the other hand, am primarily interested in the story behind the silver usually building upon Phil Osborn’s. scholarship and Bart’s careful searches.
I am more interested in the Story than the Storr.
I started collecting silver for the same reason geologists take rock core samples. I want to know about the people who owned it who made it and who used it. I want to know the sociological climate of the time.
My most prized possession is a battered silver cup which was once an exhibit in an Old Bailey case. The guy who stole it was black-hooded to the gallows but his sentence was commuted as they needed his talents in Australia, well Tasmania.
The cup was a fairly ordinary item made by Wintle, himself later in trouble with the law.
I bought it out of a collection for sale in Bridgnorth, Salop fifty years or more ago. I bought it because I had been to school with music maestro Chris Wintle whose famous filmographer father recorded much of English life in the 1940’s and only discovered the Old Bailey connection when I spoke with the sellers and got the court document copies.
As to who answers your questions since Bart is in Poland and I am eight or nine time zones away on the Pacific, or sometimes only five or six around the Great Lakes, it depends of what time of the day or night you post and if I have anything useful to say about the item.
Also I am trying very hard to wean myself off silver plate. This site is getting addicted to the stuff and we’re losing sight of the simple fact it is basically fake silver for people who want the bling without the hit on their purse. I am vaguely interested in old Sheffield plate but mostly because of the work coming out of Birmingham not Sheffield. But electroplate is just boring.
Here’s a Storr-ied item which sold today at under scrap with connection to the English royals through Ronsay.
CRWW
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Okay, thank you for all this help after reading. What are your thoughts? What type of metal do you think it is?
There was one who was angry with me for encouraging people to fight, forcing them to use their brains… God, who lets such creatures out of the zoo?
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The creatures need help his brain is out of work .
God gave man free will. And a brain. Use it or lose it. I still wonder where the claim that we are the dominant species comes from…
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I use my brain in asking help and this is a good isnt .
What to do i buy the spoons and forks or not . Am using a google translate and i can read more than a few words .
Those who immediately expect a ready-made answer deserve contempt. I’m a proponent of commitment and independent work; if I can’t manage, then I turn to professionals. I despise laziness, lack of commitment, and taking the easy way out. That’s the domain of the modern generation of 20-30-year-olds. After all, these pseudo-men can’t drive a nail, let alone deal with markings on anything… Hence the hatred—it stems from insecurities… Not to mention fathering a child, building a house, and ensuring security…
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I am forties, married, a doctor, and have children. I love the silver trade, but when I search and cannot find out , I post here. I have searched a lot for these hallmarkets and have not the answer , so I ask here .daily. I deal with a lot of silver, but when I lose hope to be sure , I post in this forum to get the opinion of professionals
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