Please can anyone help to identify whether this hallmark on some old family candlesticks denotes solid silver or plated and also the provence and year? I’ve tried other online research to no avail but I’m just an amateur!
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Nice coincidence. We saw the same markings just yesterday!
It’s electroplate from Elkington & Co., early Victorian (before 1866). Can’t quite make out the date letter…
ETA: If you can make out that final punch, you might do some exploration of the images on this page, which would pin down the date more accurately. If forced to guess, I’d say it’s an A, for 1865, but that’s just a wild stab.
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Thank you so much! I thought the last letter is a plain z without serifs but following your link I think it must be a 2, which would date the candlesticks to 1842. Your help has been very much appreciated!
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Your candle sticks are identical to a pair which were exhibited at the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace by the Elkington brothers.
Strange as it may seem to us, in the 1850’s et seq. your sticks, because of the way they were made, were the epitome of modern industrial art which, of course, was what Prince Albert, Victoria’s husband wanted to tell the world.
Over six million people, roughly one-third of the British population at the time, visited during the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Duke of Devonshire’s protege Sir Joseph Paxton’s revolutionary glass and iron building hosted the event in Hyde Park from May 1 to October 15, averaging over 42,000 attendees a day, according to wikipedia.
After the Exhibition, the 23-acre Crystal Palace was dismantled and moved to Sydenham Hill in South London, reopening as a permanent entertainment and educational center in 1854. Over its entire lifespan, until it burned in 1936, the Palace drew tens of millions of additional visitors for concerts, exhibitions, and leisure.
You are, from what one can see, quite correct it is a “Z” and refers to the year 1864.
The first sequence of years are marked by letter of the alphabet not numbers.
CRWW
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