I do not know the country of origin, but suspect it may be French because of the “12” between a tree figure and an undecipherable animal-type image. Can anyone help? I inherited this piece from grandparents; it is most likely from the late 1800s. Thanks very much for any guidance. I am new to silver.
12 means 12 Loth - it was made in eastern europe about 1820/40
Hi there,
Sorry to say thats not quite right. The Loth system of assaying silver was used in Germany (and Poland when Poland was part of Germany) before 1886, and it basically classified silver into 5 groups based on purity. 12 (as you said) stands for 12 Loth, which equals .750 grade silver, or 75% pure silver (sterling is 92.5% pure). Unfortunately there is no way to date silver marked like this exactly, and without seeing the item itself I can’t tell you anything more about it. The mark on the left would be the town mark, but I can’t find anything similar in any of my reference books i’m afraid. The mark on the right would be either a sponsors mark, or makers mark, but without knowing the town it would be very hard to trace the maker.
Sorry to say thats all I can tell you,
Regards
Daniel
1888 is correct - there the hallmarksystem in germany started to use 800 etc- i did not say germany or poland- i said eastern europe - it also can be a country which belonged to austria between 1830 - 1900 - but as you said - it is hard to say without a pic of the item
greetings tom
Thanks for the information. I do not have the cup with me now, but when I return I can post a picture of it. This is very interesting to me, I much appreciate your input.