posted 03-05-2006 05:16 PM            

GSMW is organized like the analytical index of Tardy, with marks shown, in good drawings, in order by design. Next to each is its identification. The first 20+ pages give brief surveys of the histories of marking in 31 countries; these are mostly less detailed than in Tardy, and although they sometimes start at an earlier date than Tardy, they are mostly very thin for more recent years (which makes them likely less useful for many people, who are more likely to encounter a 1940s piece than a 15th-century one). Most of these sketches do cite one or a few references, but many are dated by now.

In many cases, GSMW gives only one example of a mark where Tardy shows a range from different years. And Tardy does include countries not in GSMW (particularly non-European ones) -- although the coverage of most such even in Tardy is cursory at best. GSMW does not show city letters or date codes (which Tardy does for some), but does list other data omitted by Tardy (like the letter codes for Austro-Hungarian marks). I noted one mark for Naples in GSMW not in Tardy, but many GSMW drawings appear to be copied from Tardy, or from the same source Tardy copied from (although rendered in uniform style with black background). Then again, GSMW shows a different mark for 18th-century Jönköping (Sweden) than does Tardy. I gather the marks in GSMW were copied from many sources, into a uniform style.

GSMW appears to have much better coverage of Poland than Tardy, and also of parts of the area of (formerly) Czechoslovakia; Tardy seems better for Russian marks. A curious decision was made to include some US (coin) silversmiths' initial marks in GSMW; the incompleteness of this makes it pretty useless.

The alphabetizing of GSMW in English follows English spelling, unlike Tardy (although in GSMW this only really pertains to the introductory sketches and the index, since the marks aren't organized by country). This is the main complaint I hear about Tardy, but those who use it regularly do get used to looking for the French word order -- or rely on the index at the back. In GSMW, to find all marks of a particular country you have to go to the index of cities and countries, and even then may need to search both a country and its cities (the index doesn't repeat, for example, marks of Paris under the entry for France, and the entry for Denmark, for example, lists only one mark; the others are listed under the cities).