Extra smaller mark next to maker's mark (English)

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Extra smaller mark next to maker's mark (English)

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Author	Topic: Extra smaller mark next to maker's mark (English)
Primroy Posts: 42 Registered: Jan 2007	posted 01-25-2007 03:01 PM [26-1335] Hi, I just bought two William Chawner II London fiddle pattern tablespoons dated 1823. On both there is a small engraved "L" next to the WC maker's mark. It is hard to see in the scan (I only have a scanner), but it is there nonetheless. I have also seen similar engraved letters in the same position on other spoons made in England. What does the smaller letter represent? Regards, Primroy IP: Logged
DB Posts: 252 Registered: May 2006	posted 01-25-2007 03:19 PM The small mark next to the set of hallmarks is a journeyman's mark and was used to keep track of and pay for a journeyman's output. Yet another reason why the term "maker's mark" should be replaced with the term "sponsor's mark". ------------------ Dorothea Burstyn IP: Logged
Primroy Posts: 42 Registered: Jan 2007	posted 01-26-2007 02:57 AM Thank you so much Ms. Burstyn. I am honored with your reply. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge with others. Had I read your article All These Numbers I would have known as much! quote: On English flatware pieces, yet another number with different meaning is found. In Fig.13 a pair of Victorian salt spoons with a journeyman's marks in the form of the number '7' is shown. While most journeymen's marks are symbols, numbers were also used. A journeyman was a qualified craftsman who worked for a master. In order to have a count of how many pieces a specific craftsman had produced, a symbol or number was assigned to him. The journeyman's mark may also have been a method for quality control of produced pieces. It was usually stamped in next to the sponsor's mark. In larger flatware services, pieces with different journeyman's marks may be found. To date there is no research into the identification of individual journeymen.--From All These Numbers by D. B. [This message has been edited by Primroy (edited 01-26-2007).] IP: Logged
Clive E Taylor Posts: 450 Registered: Jul 2000	posted 01-26-2007 06:54 AM Current opinion in the silver world is that these marks denote journeymen or other piece workers tally marks. Current opinion in the porcelain collectors world twenty years ago was the same concerning similar marks found on early English porcelain. They were decorators marks. Considerable doubt has since been raised, with good evidence, against that view in the porcelain field, but no alternative has been raised. Having tried to upset the applecart I will mix another metaphor and I will sit firmly on the fence ! IP: Logged
DB Posts: 252 Registered: May 2006	posted 01-26-2007 08:44 AM Thanks you for your kind remarks. I should have added that journeyman's marks were also used on American silver - see John R. McGrew: Manufacturers' Marks on American Coin Silver, Argyros Publications, Hanover, Pennsylvania, 2004, page 154 ff. ------------------ Dorothea Burstyn IP: Logged
ahwt Posts: 2377 Registered: Mar 2003	posted 01-26-2007 11:03 AM Sometimes the initials of the journeyman or craftsman were used as in these candelabrum (Silversmith marks. I guess that the names of TM or of the flower mark have been lost forever. IP: Logged
Silver Lyon Posts: 363 Registered: Oct 2004	posted 01-26-2007 01:04 PM Care must be taken. As Clive says, there is no definitive answer. With flatware, especially the heavier patterns that require steel dies but even sometimes with simpler patterns, the 'tally marks' refer to the die number so that when a set was re-ordered the new pieces would be struck from the same dies. Another sticky point is that not all workshops were large enough to need differentiating marks for workmen and there is little or no evidence of piecework rates as opposed to daily wages in surviving account books. More work needs to be done... Don't believe all you read! [This message has been edited by Silver Lyon (edited 01-26-2007).] IP: Logged
Clive E Taylor Posts: 450 Registered: Jul 2000	posted 01-26-2007 07:09 PM As Silver Lyon say we must be carefull. By the late 18th century much of the work was subcontracted to other specialist firms, and even if all the work was done in house within one firm a bowl would probably be raised by one worker and chased or brightcut by another. Then burnished by a third, probably female hand . IP: Logged
ahwt Posts: 2377 Registered: Mar 2003	posted 01-26-2007 09:21 PM The words “maker” and “sponsor” may have a different meaning in England the U.S. I use the word “maker” to mean the manufacturer. Under the U.S. definition a “maker” could be a sole practitioner, a large company hiring many employees or a company that contracts out the manufacture of the item. In the U.S. the word “sponsor” is used as follows; one has a sponsor for a baptism, for a commercial on television, for a bill in Congress or for a period of apprenticeship. None of these are appropriate for defining the ongoing relationship between the worker and the retailer. I do not think that employees of U.S. companies would refer to or think of their employer as their sponsor. More likely they would be offended by this idea. I think that this word is a poor choice to use in trying to describe the meaning of marks, but then the English may have an entirely different view of the meaning of these two words. IP: Logged
Clive E Taylor Posts: 450 Registered: Jul 2000	posted 01-28-2007 12:59 PM For once English and American usage is the same. Sponsors mark is now the English legal term for what all of us think of as the Makers mark. Basically because any work going for assay must have an owner, or rather someone to be responsible for the article. Basically in times long ago the maker and the sponsor were the same man. He made the article, took it for assay, paid the charge and got it in the neck if it proved substandard. Since the early eighteenth century the owner of the workshop became more remote from the actual craftwork. He employed people, often a team, to produce an article. Often he subcontracted other firms to do some or all of the work. But he was "the man who carried the can" and was reponsible for all the goods being assayed. Some makers, like Hester Bateman probably never went into the workshop. The process continued until now a Limited Company is the legal entity responsible for most articles. So the word sponsor is now even more an accurate one for the "makers " mark. Does anyone think Mr Ford makes each car ? IP: Logged

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