posted 06-13-2004 01:53 PM              

The marks have the incuse Duty mark of 1784 - 1786 and a London lowercase date letter of "k" , confirming the 1785/6 London dating. But the punch for the Lion Passant Guardant is not in the typical London form, although many odd variants exist around this period. Of the other assay offices only Chester used a "k" and the incuse George ( for 1785/86 ) but again the lion does not look Chester.

So one looks to the makers mark - which is very misleading in that I think it is UPSIDE DOWN and is TW or perhaps IW I think it is probably one of Thomas Wallis of London's numerous marks, not all of which are given in Grimwade, including several unillustrated in the buckle maker section.

I may well be wrong, and if it is I W rather than a T W it well could be a Chester smith, several of whom were I W (I do not have the new book on Chester makers yet - I see very few Chester buckles !)

posted 06-13-2004 02:01 PM            

Here is a set of larger London marks from a much larger (11")spoon - same maker and year. As has been mentioned before, the shield shapes on small marks, such as those on your small spoon, ofter vary from those shown in the tables.

posted 06-14-2004 03:47 PM              

I personally am 95% sure this is Thomas Wallis, but would like to reserve the 5% for a possible Chester smith - no offense Swarter but I've been caught out too many times in the past. Egg on face is normal.

posted 06-14-2004 06:52 PM            

Where my image is not so fine is that I did not take the time to clean out the punch marks of their accumulated tarnis. Had I done so, you would have been able to see that the somewhat ususual letter form in the maker's mark is the same as in the punch on the small spoon, and therefore the liklihood is that they belong to the same person.

As to the individual punches on the small spoon, one could speculate that some of the other objects on which small punches were used might be expected not to have space for all the punches to be placed together, and thus flexibility was preserved by keeping the punches separate. Also, since the date was changed each year, only one punch would have to be replaced, and not a whole bar, so economy may have also been an additional consideration, as separate punches would still be needed, and these could also be used on larger items if decoration would be marred by the larger bar. This way, only one bar (large) and one set of weparate punches (small) would have to be made.

Thanks for your input.

Speaking of "egg on the face," I have just received a copy of Made in Bermuda, an exhibit catalog that includes silver and silver marks. I will have to study these more closely, but on first glance, it seems there is ample opportunity for conflating American and Bermudan marks, since, only rarely were the initial marks acconpanied by "Bermuda." I am sure that I have seen more than one of these before - the question is: did they go from or to the mainland?

posted 06-16-2004 05:15 PM              

The problem with buckles ( and much other small silver) is that we very rarely get a date letter or assay office mark until after 1790 except for Birmingham and Sheffield. Spoon collectors are more luckly!