Hi i wonder if any of you may be able to help me with this trophy please. I am unsure of the markings, i understand from the lion it is silver but the other markings i cannot seem to fathom out. I have it up for sale and had an offer straight away which leads me to believe it may be valuable? Many thanks
Kind regards
The cup has a Chester assay mark with the date letter H for 1908 so it must have been re-purposed in 1947. I see that you have it for sale at around ÂŁ150. If it weighs over about 110 grams ÂŁ150 is less than current scrap price which I suspect is where any value might lie. Engraving of the sort on your cup would certainly put most buyers off.
It’s scrap value is £182.00 on Boxing day.
But a scrap merchant will not offer you any more than 60 to 80% of melt. so if you can collect 150 quid and make them pay for the postage you are doing pretty good.
I pay 60% for scrap which is exactly what the smelter pays me.I only make the offer as in between all the golf trophies and other material of very limited collector interest I get some treasures.
Someone brought in six stuffed Vicky sticks. I took the wood plugs off the bottom and confirmed they were mid-eighteenth century Cafe sticks. Seller was happy and I was happy. Still have them on the dining room table.
The tricky bits are heavy Georgian trays or coffee pots or toast racks which both the seller and I know are bona fide items which should be worth triple scrap but aren’t because the days of air-cooled toast, well-muscled tray carriers and coffee that has been decanted into something to cool it is over
Today they are all worth more scrap than intrinsic value and are being melted as fast as granny can get them into the furnace.
It’s making items that would have sold at premium by premium shops in the eighteenth and nineteenth century disappear completely.
I suppose culling the flock is going to make what’s left just than much more sought after. But at what price.
CRWW
Thanks for the reply much appreciated. I am learning more and more about the markings which is very interesting! I have also bought some better scales and it weighs in at 402grms so hopefully I shall be able to get a better price 
for scrap. many thanks again.
I can’t find a Chester-registered mark which matches the shape of this one ending with LTD and of a consistent date. S Blanckensee & Sons Ltd is the closest but it is not a match:
I came to the same conclusion after looking through all the Chester signs I knew of.
I can’t find the mark with the dash under LTD.
Does anybody know when M M Henderson first registered a mark?
I discounted Hendersons as they registered that mark on 26 November 1937 - too late for this 1908 hallmark. In addition both Henderson’s and Blanckensee’s marks have a different shape on the lower right of the mark.
If close counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, then perhaps S Blanckensee & Sons Ltd’s shield mark you cite as registered in 1908 in Chester and 1899 in Birmingham might catch a break as on the converted golf trophy the only significant difference between the mark your site shows and the mark at issue is “Ltd” is underlined or under-marked?
If someone else also registered in the Chester assay office was using a mark so similar to Blanckensee’s as to be guilty of the offence of passing off, it seems unlikely the assay office itself wouldn’t have taken steps and if they didn’t mightn’t the Birmingham Assay master have weighed in?
If there isn’t enough of the trophy to state with confidence it is a Blankensee mark used the very year it was first registered in the Chester office I wonder if it might not also be stipulated there also isn’t enough evidence to stipulate it isn’t?
I can envisage the creation of a sponsor’s strike dye for the Chester office with the underlining, then someone noticing the slight variant and withdrawing it and eventually substituting another for Chester Assay without the underline.
Oh, and Happy New Year, Phil!
CRWW
Happy New Year to you too, Christopher. And also to all of our readers and particularly our contributors.
To your health, my friends!
In the days before fox hunting became an illegal sport, I once performed a minor farrier service for a rather muddy rider whose horse had failed to clear one of my farmer brother’s daunting Northamptonshire blind oxers. This in turn got me a very rushed invite to Highgrove where I noted much of the modern day-to-day silver was Blanckensee’s work.
Today I see the owner is now retailing the product so not only did the gardener there get his profile on the silver as an optional feature March '23 to December '24 but passed up the opportunity to appear on some of it as retailer.
Years later, this time on the west coast I ran into the Tetbury gardener again this time opening something on Vancouver Island. The memory of that early encounter seemed quite un-triggered by my reappearance three decades later sans farrier kit.
CRWW
Cash for Gold would pay you 510.54 for 402 grams scrap so I would possibly amend your listing so that you don’t end up out of pocket. Obviously you need to be careful because these scrap silver/gold sites give you less in terms of value if you aren’t careful.
Which is 60% of melt value or about standard.
The melt value of 402 grams of sterling is $US854.44 after the drop in price last week.
CRWW
Hi thanks sooo much for your insight into the trophy and its markings, much appreciated, excuse the tardiness in my response, Christmas and all that !! Many thanks once again and I may be back with more questions at a later date. Cheers, Happy New Year
