posted 06-23-2004 03:01 PM            

I am so happy to have found this board because I have a number of silver/silverplate pieces that I have not had very go luck in identifying. This question may belong on a different board (I have had people guess that it was Irish, English, Italian and French) but I'll let you direct me to where to post it.

Anyway, This is an unusual vanity piece. It's about 4 inches tall and 2 inches in diameter. The underside of the lid is goldish. There are 3 different etches on the glass-one of musical instruments, one of and art easel and one is crossed torches. There is a hallmark on the silver near the ground glass stopper of MG.

Here is a drawing of the various stamps:

There are stamps in several places. There is a stamp 925 in the pattern in the lid and it has a little pattern to the right that looks kinda like a door knocker with something like rope coming out up, down and each side .

The MG is in 2 different places-- on the top of the silver part that is attached to the glass where the stopper goes, and on the outside of that part of the silver. In the second location the remainder of the stamps drawn are next to the MG. On the top part of the silver lid there is that 925 and the one of the other stamps shown above ( the one that is shown to the left of 925 above appears to the right of the 925). All of these are on the outside of the piece.

I hope all this makes sense. And I'd appreciate any help and look forward to posting here often

posted 06-23-2004 09:10 PM            

Lovely piece! You took some nice photos, would it be possible to send some close-ups of the actual marks? My guess is that your second mark is the British import mark (meaning that it was made elsewhere and assayed for sale in England) for London, used from 1906 on. The third mark (925) indicates sterling silver. The fourth mark should be the date code, but I'd hesitate to date it from your drawing. MG is probably the makers mark. Are you sure there aren't any other marks?