posted 12-17-2005 10:16 AM            

Above is a picture of an eight inch fiddle thread fork. The mark is “S” WMRogers S”. I can make out the Rogers portion in the middle only by tilting the fork in a light source, but my photographer’s skill is not such that I can capture a picture of the name. The fork has an attractive monogram.

Rainwater and Redfield show a mark that Rodgers used for coin on page 281 as an eagle Wm Rogers star, but do not show a mark either for solid silver or otherwise with an S in front and in back of his name. Has anyone seen this mark?

I also wonder what happened to the latest edition of the Rainwater and Redfield book. It seems a step backward or am I missing something? The one I have is the Revised Fourth Edition.

Above is a picture of an eight inch fiddle thread fork. The mark is "S" WMRogers S". I can make out the Rogers portion in the middle only by tilting the fork in a light source, but my photographer's skill is not such that I can capture a picture of the name. The fork has an attractive monogram.

Rainwater and Redfield show a mark that Rodgers used for coin on page 281 as an eagle Wm Rogers star, but do not show a mark either for solid silver or otherwise with an S in front and in back of his name. Has anyone seen this mark?

posted 12-17-2005 12:15 PM            

My impression is that the markings used did not denote silver content. Instead, I guess that they refer to something else. What that may be is really up in the air. It might refer to the production process: the factory, the actual supervisor, the length of plating time, the time of year in which they were made. It could also be whatever they had handy as a mark. Then there is the idea that the mark refers to the time of manufacture: Early in thelife of a pattern one mark was used. Later production would bear a different mark.

Or, and this is a real possibility, it might refer to the selling method. Various retailers could have been assigned certain marks. For reasons relating to distribution and wholesale practices. For example, one mark might have been for retailers who bought directly from the factory. Another for wholesalers. Another for mail order firms. Yet another for export.

Ken Diebel who had studied the subject for years told me he had never been able to make head nor tails of the Rogers markings. Clayne Crousen, who had one of the earliest silverplate matching services, told me the same thing. Teri Hagen in her pattern guide collapses all of them into a miscellaneous Rogers catagory.

This is no help, is it? I have handled thousands of these pieces. And I have never been able to detect a pattern to the markings. A few tested as coin, which is the only way to tell. I have seen sets that looked to have always been together which had both, with identical monograms.

posted 12-17-2005 12:26 PM            

What may have happened was that people bought a core set for everyday use in coin silver. Then had an extension set in plate for larger events. The customer knew which pieces were which but prefered that everything be uniformly marked. This was to let guests think they were getting real silver.

posted 12-18-2005 09:50 AM            

Dale I think your comments are very interesting and thanks for the background information. The scenario of buying silver plated or white metal items to mix in with solid silver goes on (at least with me). The Britannia metal and other alloys of white metal were, in my opinion, very successful in imitating real silver. I assume that they were produced at a fraction of the cost of solid silver and even today they can be inexpensive to acquire. Forks always seem harder to find and these white metal forks really do blend in with the real thing for large gatherings.