Hopefully you can help me. I found this, what appears to be a, cigarette box among my (deceased) grandfathers things. I used some Gorham silver polish on the tarnish and it polished up quite nicely! Inside, on the main body, the large lid and the little (match compartment) lid there are two marks - one that seems to be the letters “ATV” inside a flattened rhombus, and a second which is really hard to distinguish as it is a tiny oval with seemingly something inside. I am assuming the first (with the letters) is the makers mark and the second identifies the box as silver of some purity?
Has anybody ever run across these? I’ve scoured the web and cannot find this anywhere.
Somebody on the 925-1000.com site identified the maker (a French jeweler that used to have a shop on rue Montmorency in Paris), and the hallmark as one that signifies a mixture of silver and gold, first used in 1905. The hallmark (boar and eagle facing in opposite directions) was used when the accessory metal was more than 3%.
This was confirmed later by another user on that forum and also confirmed by independent emails I sent to some specialists separately.
