halp!
i apologize if i’m posting in the wrong forum, i think this is victorian but this is definitely not my area of expertise (though i have spent some time on this website now and am LOVING learning!!)
it’s a candle snuffer and i cannot for the life of me figure out what the markings are. one minute the first looks like a letter, the next it looks like a stylized lion. looking through the posts i haven’t found much information about what the stars might represent, and i’m hoping someone might be able to help?
i haven’t polished or cleaned it at all…i know with wood furniture it decreases the value to polish an antique, is that the case at all with metal pieces? if i can and/or should polish, i’d love some help determining if this is silver or plated (or both? looks like the decorative elements, which are quite tarnished, might be different than then base) and the best way to clean/polish without damaging it…
thanks so much for any help or advice you can offer!
ok i’ve just been staaaring at this thing, and i think it’s old english script, D star I star C
i still have no idea what that means, but. there’s that 
Hello and thank you for joining us.
Your wick trimmer is not silver as there is no hallmark or other indication of silver fineness. It may be silver plate, but I’m not even sure of that. The mark reads DJCo and I presume that the stars are simply spaces to split up the other marks. Unfortunately I cannot identify this company.
As far as cleaning is concerned, in my opinion silver (and silver plate) is meant to look shiny - although not too shiny; it should at least look as if it has some age. So by all means give it a gentle clean with silver polish. If it is silver plate it should bring it up nicely and if it’s some other white metal you won’t have done any harm. Note that polishing always unavoidably removes a little silver and eventually with silver plate the base metal will be exposed. This is just a fact of life and of course it devalues the object when this happens. However leaving silver and silver plate to tarnish leads to silver loss over time and also doesn’t look good.
wow that was a fast response! i am so impressed by your knowledge…thank you!!
any idea on how old it might be?