I inherited 3 of these from my 93 y/o Aunt. To the left of the Sterling RL Brewer mark is RM, followed by a stag’s head with antlers, an ampersand (&) and a symbol I don’t recognize, maybe an S with a forward slash through it. I’d like to get some info about RL Brewer & Son. When and where did they do their silversmithing? What does the RMstagshead&S/ symbol mean?
Thanks
Any photos?——————- 
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Here’s a 1958 advertisement when Floyd Turner was the president of the company.
The company in 1978 celebrated a 100 years of business with this glass:
The history of this town, whose fortunes depended for so long on tobacco and slavery, is somewhat fraught.
Burned by the British in the revolutionary war then occupied by Union troops in the Civil War, life cannot have been easy for its merchants.
Today downtown Suffolk is disappearing and with it the jewelry store:
Daily Press | [email protected]
UPDATED: August 17, 2019. “……….Brewer Jewelry Co., a Suffolk landmark famous as the only area store that offered a bridal registry, announced it was relocating from downtown to the city’s newest strip shopping centre.
“Many people expect the list to grow
”Not only did Leggett pull out but they’ve set the stage, created an environment of despair for other businesses who were willing to hold on,” said Damiani. ”I’m sure the spinoff effect is going to be horrendous.”
‘Jean Johns, owner of Brewer Jewelry Co., said her decision to move away from downtown was hard but inevitable.
”Traffic through here is not good anymore,” said Johns. ”There’s just not much left on West Washington Street to get people down here.
CRWW
I’ll see your UK patent agent and raise you two Canadian ice hockey defencemen, Eric and Carl.
Eric Brewer was born in Vernon, BC, orchard and wine country in western Canada, and his earnings topped out at just under C$4 million He played defence for 16 season for the NHL,
Then there was Carl, another defenceman who played for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He died in 2001.
I have no reason to suppose that either of them had anything to do with the Virginian Jeweller of the 19th century but, like your eponymous 1936 UK patent agent, you never know.
A useful. family search site tells us apart from the two hockey players there are some 83,145 other people with the name Brewer in the US , some 22, 949 in the UK and another 5,198 in Germany.
Suffolk being a port city, once a shipping centre of the slave and tobacco trade, and now mostly famous for being the founding home of the Planter Peanut Factory’s first plant, will have attracted immigrants from all over Europe so we have no way of knowing if our family of Brewers were English or French or even German in origin.
There are other Brewer jewellers from Connecticut who might have been related if you cast the net wide enough.
What we do know is southern silver is getting to be as rare as hen’s teeth and as difficult to collect into the 18th century and even retail-marked silver almost invariably made by someone else whose name may not even appear on items stamped by the retailer are collectible and it would be very interesting to see this particular collection.
CRWW
I couldn’t get my phone camera to focus on the tiny print.
CRWW,
Thank you very much for the info. The link to the Library of VA was most helpful.
Not sure what you are using but if the initial image is blurry pull the camera back until it sharpens then use your lens magnifier to bring it back into a tight frame. It then comes down to the pixel count on your machine. The best are now up to 200 PPI now.
CRWW
It’s hard for me to believe that in an age of such advanced and fast-paced technology, you’d have trouble taking a photo… Unless you are using outdated equipment from a dozen or so years ago.
