Can anyone help me identify the hallmark on this candle holder. I’m thinking that is nearly 300 old from the date letter but can’t find any reference for the bird symbol.
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They always remind me of my childhood and Wee Willie Winkie 
, always nice to see them with the Snuffer too. No doubt one of the experts will be along soon and answer any questions you have pbob 
.
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The A is not a date letter; your chamberstick is electroplated, not silver, and dates from the late 19th or early 20th century. TW is Thomas Wilkinson of Birmingham.
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Thanks so much for that information and the great explanation. I would never have got there on my own and it’s greatly appreciated.
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This is one of the most interesting candles-to-light-me-to-bed designs I have ever seen. The bluebell snuffer alone is worth the price of admission.Mix that with a Greek treatment around the circumference of the dish and a classic Georgian dot and dash pattern on the snuffer holder and you would expect a disaster. But somehow it all works.
So who created it? Certainly the scissor maker Thomas Wilkinson & Co is the mark, as always skillfully unearthed by “Silver Makers Marks” prop and it may even have been cast at the later Birmingham works but who designed it, this lovely mush up of Ruskin and ancient Greek?
Of course we shall never know. Wilkinson, both the father who first set up as a cutler in 1822 or possibly earlier and his heir George who was responsible for making the most complicated scissors ever for his Queen and for organizing the Sheffield booth arrangements at the Great Exhibit organized by Prince Albert had access to the very best craftsmen.
Here’s some useful background on perhaps the world’s foremost scissor maker in an era when hand cutting was everything for everybody before machines took over and computers not skill dictated product design.
The amount of plate the company produced was not great and one is at a bit of a loss as to why he did it at all. At his zenith he only had 25 highly skilled workers producing scissors and one wonders perhaps is this fine example wasn’t farmed out. But again to whom?
Incidentally the firm while sold continued into the late 20th century.
CRWW
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