I’ve done my best to decipher these marks but now I’m stumped. This spoon was a gift from a friend whose late mother collected bits of silver at markets, so no provenance beyond that.
The lion appears to be guardant, with its face towards the viewer, putting it before 1823. Do you concur?
The assay mark is very rubbed. Maybe Exeter, but there is no date letter. Edinburgh? A leopard head with crown?
The engraved fellow who looks like a pirate above a piece of rope is presumably a family crest. Whose crest? I have no idea how to go about looking that up.
Any insights you can share would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
This is clearly (to me anyway) not an English/British mark. I suggest possibly a Chinese export mark rather than an American coin silver mark as there is what appears to be (thanks, Bart) an English family armorial.
If it is Chinese export silver, what do you suppose the silver content is?
I know that people ordered sets of personalized dishes from China, but I didn’t know that they ordered cutlery as well. My question is—what time period do you think the spoon is from?
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