posted 05-31-2014 12:59 PM            

It has the number 2136493.

I assume this is Alpaca (Nickel Silver), silver plated. It certainly isn't plain Nickel Silver, and it has a well engraved family name, so I believe it is a quality item. The family name is probably that of a middle class, prosperous German or French Jewish family, post 1935, so it may have a sad history.

EDIT>>>
I note that Rumpelmayer was a purveyor of ice creams, noted in New York, but previously also franchised in Paris. The name on the bowl is Rumpelmayer, in a rather blocky font, and the bowl is very much in what I might expect to be served an ice cream.

posted 06-01-2014 06:02 PM            

Antoine Rumpelmayer was an Austrian pastry chef who opened a tearoom in Nice in the late nineteenth century. It soon became a great hit with wealthy and aristocratic vacationers, so Rumpelmayer opened additional tearooms on the French Riviera, and in 1903 in Paris where he changed the name to Angelina’s after his daughter-in-law. Other locations (London, New York) were franchised as Rumelmayer’s beginning in the 1930’s.

The flagship Angelina’s still exists on the rue de Rivoli in Paris just across from the Tuileries Gardens. It is famous for exceptionally goo-ey pastries, hot chocolate and ice cream. Other branches are found elsewhere in Paris and around the world.

posted 06-01-2014 06:45 PM            

I have checked all Christofle pages I could find, including doing a thorough search in this forum. If you know the marks I have described, and all are exactly as Christofle web page references, then you will have the picture.

The bowl is beautifully solid, well plated, and is what I like to call "hotel grade". I have other pieces of tableware of a similar standard, including a logo'd shipping line sugar bowl, and it is not too hard to tell this sort of quality from cheap plate.

What I am interested in, and I don't think I will ever know, is whether this bowl is from the Rumpelmayer cafe organisation. I have searched this topic on the web, also.
The engraving is very blocky, and deep - the bottom of the engraved letters is flat, not of a V-form. To my mind, it indicates a factory mass engraving, which would be more applicable to commercial, rather than domestic use.

The Rumpelmayer logo seen on a ceramic item, and on all the menus I have located on the web is of a florid cursive handwritten form. I believe it would have been difficult to engrave such a logo in metal, so that may be a reason for the difference. On the other hand, I may be completely wrong, and there may be no connection whatever!

posted 06-01-2014 09:04 PM            

Regular checks of that large west-coast internet site will yield other Christofle restaurant ware items from Rumpelmayer's, so that you can compare them to the engraving on your ice cream dish.