This mark is on the bottom of a 3 inch tall goblet (i guess it is a goblet, I don’t really know) Any info would be helpful. Thank you!
Any thoughts on what it could be or if it is a real mark at all?
Hi and thanks for joining us. It is not a conventional UK, US, or Continental mark or anything I’m familiar with. The word “silver” is not commonly used in connection with solid silver wares. Try rubbing the surface briskly with your thumb to heat it, then smell the area…an acrid odor usually denotes silver plate; no odor is probably solid silver or some non-silver metal. A jeweler can test it for silver content using an acid drop.
Regards,
Uncle Vic
I had a the man who runs a local antique store do that acid test for me and he said it is silver, have you ever seen the word “silver” as part of a mark and if so shouldn’t all the letters be capital letters, I am far from an expert on this stuff but from what I have looked at online I really didn’t see any lower case letters in any marks?
I don’t think the case of the letters is signifigant as it appears the letters were individually applied via punches vs. a single punch with the entire word engraved upon it. This leads me to the suggestion that it may be of orential origin as I’ve seen such "hand-punched’ marks there before. And the motif is orential vs. perhaps central or south American. The symbols under the word are not familiar to me, but the first one suggests an anchor?
Sorry, but I’m just speculating at this point.
Regards,
Uncle Vic
I have still not been able to figure out the ID of the maker, dispite hours upon hours of searching. Uncle Vic base on just what you can see in the photos and what I have said about the item can you tell me what you think the vaule of the peice is. I know very little about the value of stuff like this and the antique dealer I took it to offered to buy it from me and I just want to make sure I am not getting ripped off. Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
If you are convinced from the prior test that it is solid silver, and let’s assume it is of “sterling” purity, or 92.5% silver, then since we can’t identify the maker or age, we would further assume it has little value over its metal content. In that case as a general proposition many dealers say sterling scrap is worth about 83% of the commodity price quoted in the media, which is quoted in troy ounces. So roughly (and this is very rough) if silver is quoted at $40 a troy ounce, your item should bring about $33.60 per troy ounce as scrap. A good practice would be to get a number of offers before settling on one.
Regards,
Uncle Vic