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Help with identifying this maker

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Author	Topic: Help with identifying this maker
allentownboy Posts: 67 Registered: Feb 2009	posted 02-17-2009 07:14 PM [26-1803] I hope I am doing this correctly, and not violating any rules! I have posted here two pics: The first showing one of each of a charger and bread plate set I inherited. There are 8 of each size (10.75 inches & 6 inches) The second pic is of the maker's mark. I interpret it to be" L T Co." with the words "Made in England" on the bread plates, and "Made in Sheffield England" on the chargers. I believe them to be early 20th century, possibly late 19c., but I am no expert - that's why i am here! I have driven myself half crazy trying to identify who this maker may be for 9 years now, searching all over the place! Does anyone have any leads for me that I can pursue to learn more about who this is? PS: Also, on the larger plates there is stamped "Silver Mounts" I have never seen this either. I have seen white metal mounts, metal mounts, B.M. mounts, etc...but not this...does that mean the appliques are silver? Very puzzling! IP: Logged
adelapt Posts: 418 Registered: May 2003	posted 02-17-2009 09:37 PM Although I can't help you with the maker, the "silver mounts" mark indicates that the gadrooned rims on the dinner plates are made of silver, most likely stamped fairly thin and filled with lead solder. The plates look to be end of 19thC or earlyish 20thC. IP: Logged
allentownboy Posts: 67 Registered: Feb 2009	posted 02-17-2009 11:15 PM Thanks adelapt, that at least helps to answer that question for me. I sure would love to know the maker however. I almost feel like it has become an obsession at this point! IP: Logged
FWG Posts: 845 Registered: Aug 2005	posted 02-18-2009 09:54 AM There's an excellent and most useful little book by George Mappin on EPNS, Sheffield and close plate marks, but it pretty much stops at 1900. That style of mark, as adelapt suggests, becomes common right at the end of the 19th century (although there are earlier examples) and continues well into the 20th. That particular mark - which I would take as L C Co, although my first read also was L T Co - is not shown in the Mappin book. I did check both possibilities there. I also feel that they most likely date to the early 20th century. IP: Logged
allentownboy Posts: 67 Registered: Feb 2009	posted 02-18-2009 03:03 PM Thanks FWG for the info. I am pretty certain that it is "L T Co" however. I have 2 candelabra with the same mark that was part of this inheritance 9 years ago. Here is a pic showing the base of one of the candelabra with a clearer stamp of the "L T" in Olde English script. Someone once told me that it was a Turton Silver company mark, but I have my doubts about this. What a mystery! IP: Logged
Dale Posts: 2132 Registered: Nov 2002	posted 02-18-2009 06:02 PM Time for my standard take on the issue (wish we had stickies). Marks on silverplate are frequently not about who made the item but about how it was sold. The mysterious marks are meant to convey that the piece is a product of classical English design, firmly placed in the world of proper taste. The term I have usually seen applied to such things is: Department Store Silverplated Holloware. This means that the item was when new a high quality, expensive piece. Department stores used to be the arbiters of taste. Beginning, I believe, sometime after WW1, they began to offer whole rooms, and sometimes whole houses, filled with tasteful high end merchandise. The dining room would have a set of 'Colonial' style furniture and a harmonizing china, crystal, silver and linens. Your pieces fit that description. From handling hundreds of such items, I can make a few observations. At any given moment, sp holloware had three forms: plain, ornate and contemporary. The plain was usually presented as Georgian or Colonial. After 1950, the plain looses its borders and becomes Danish Modern. Ornate changes over time, plain is made for very long periods of time. IP: Logged
allentownboy Posts: 67 Registered: Feb 2009	posted 02-18-2009 06:13 PM How incredibly interesting! I really appreciate that history lesson! So, the mark may not have anything to do with a maker, but instead a dept store. Boy, I have lot to learn! IP: Logged
Dale Posts: 2132 Registered: Nov 2002	posted 02-18-2009 06:17 PM As to the maker, it is quite possible there isn't a consistant one. The design could have been owned by an importer. When supplies ran low, requests for bids would go out to a number of manufacturers. The best bid won. The dies were then shipped to the winner and the pieces produced. The tarrifs at any given time would determine the rest of the process. Sometimes items would come as pieces to be assembled and plated in the US. Sometimes as unplated. And other times as ready to go. The old style jobbers were willing to sit on things for years as long as they got a low price from the maker. Frequently the original one who ordered would sell to other jobbers. They in turn would service the department stores and high end jewlers. IP: Logged
Dale Posts: 2132 Registered: Nov 2002	posted 02-18-2009 06:23 PM Dating them is fairly simple, if you only want a time frame. Imports were high in the 20's, virtually disapeared in the 30's and 40's, and only began to revive again in the late 70's. Which pretty much narrows it down to the 20's. Generally, the old consumption cycle for silver was that a major upgrade and expansion took place on the Silver Anniversary. So you need to search the family tree for someone married between 1893 and 1904. Anyone in your family tree fit there? IP: Logged
allentownboy Posts: 67 Registered: Feb 2009	posted 02-18-2009 07:27 PM Dale, you have gotten me started down an interesting road, and one I never thought of until reading your posts. As for the marriage/genealogy portion, that will take some research, but something you mentioned made me think: My family emigrated from Europe in the 1890's and lived in NYC until leaving for Philadelphia in the mid 20's. THe dept store angle got me thinking... I wonder if this is a Lord & Taylor dept store mark from the turn of the century for their own line of silver plate. Strangely enough, I have a contact at Lord & Taylor who may be able to let me know if they have a historian that can research this for me. Anything is possible! IP: Logged
Kimo Posts: 1652 Registered: Mar 2003	posted 02-20-2009 10:23 AM One other thought is that the 'family coat of arms' engraving on the charger may or may not have anything to do with the original owners. Such designs were and still are applied to commercially made objects simply to make them more romantic rather than having them be the actual owner's real coat of arms. In my experience silver plated objects seem to have such additions more often for decoration and enhancing marketing purposes while solid silver objects tend to have them for actual families with such coats of arms. Do you know whether your ancestor had a hereditary coat of arms granted by the Royal College of Arms? Note that there is no such thing as a family coat of arms for a given surname - coats of arms are only granted to a particular individual and their direct heirs. [This message has been edited by Kimo (edited 02-20-2009).] IP: Logged
allentownboy Posts: 67 Registered: Feb 2009	posted 02-20-2009 01:04 PM Thanks for the reply Kimo. I am fairly confident that no one in my family ever had a family crest. The chargers themselves have three different versions of hand engraved crests with the following phrases on them: Pro Rege ("For the King") Dieu Aide ("With God's Assistance") Hoc Age ("Apply Yourself" or "Do This") Pretty common phrases from what I understand, so it is possible they were engraved on these chargers just to "romanticize" them a bit and make them seem important. I am still trying to work the Lord & Taylor angle as well and will let people know if I find out anything interesting there... [This message has been edited by allentownboy (edited 02-20-2009).] [This message has been edited by allentownboy (edited 02-20-2009).] IP: Logged
FWG Posts: 845 Registered: Aug 2005	posted 02-21-2009 11:40 AM quote: Time for my standard take on the issue (wish we had stickies). Marks on silverplate are frequently not about who made the item but about how it was sold. The mysterious marks are meant to convey that the piece is a product of classical English design, firmly placed in the world of proper taste. The term I have usually seen applied to such things is: Department Store Silverplated Holloware. This means that the item was when new a high quality, expensive piece.... Dale, I agree completely with you on this when it comes to American SP/EP production,particularly after the earliest part of the 20th century. But I'm less confident when it comes to pieces marked "Made in England", and would probably disagree if you look outside the US market to other parts of the world. The standard thinking is that pieces with the "Made in England" mark were made for the US market, where Anglophiliac snobbery would allow higher pricing than for a similar American-made piece (this was of course the days before "buy American" became a patriotic duty). A classic marketing strategy, no problem so far. But if we posit some level of honesty - that pieces marked "Made in England" actually were so made - then the other marks need to at least be considered as possibly being from the English producers, where SP/EP marking using such stamps was still flourishing so far as I know. In other words, those marks might have been put on by an English producer specifically for sale to the US, or by an unscrupulous US maker cashing in on Anglophilia, and pertain exactly as you suggest. But couldn't they also be the regular marks of the English producer, perhaps with the addition of a "Made in England" stamp for the American market? BTW, I know of no evidence other than popular opinion that the "Made in England" stamp was specifically for the US trade. I've wondered at times if it didn't just become common practice at some point. Perhaps some of our English colleagues can weigh in on this as to whether those pieces also circulated "at home" - in which case it wouldn't even be an extra stamp for the US market. I'd also be curious to hear from our English colleagues whether in fact the traditional style manufacturers' marks continued in use there as I think. The Mappin book specifically identifies some as going well into the 20th century, but it's not a field I know all that well. Finally, lest anyone take offense, I use the phrase "Anglophiliac snobbery" not out of any dislike of the English, or even necessarily of snobs, but just to reference that specific form of snobbery as opposed to others that affect people's choices in what to buy.... IP: Logged
Dale Posts: 2132 Registered: Nov 2002	posted 02-21-2009 03:57 PM FWG, I believe the 'made in ...' is a response to the McKinley Tariff that required all imported retail items to have a country of origin. In ceramics there are lots of countries: Czechoslovakia, Austria, Japan, Bavaria (which isn't a country) and so on. In silver it is fairly common on holloware but rare on flatware. Could be because of size, but don't really know. IP: Logged

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