posted 09-05-2000 10:43 AM            

Even when a manufacturer marked an item Pat. 1890 it may only mean that they intended to submit or expected to receive a patent but in fact never did. To know if the patent date is accurate one must do research in the patent office archives. Generally, patent dates are a guide to an approximate date of introduction.

Generally, it seems that manufacturers did a better job of dating American holloware than flatware. Often they would apply a date letter or symbol or date stamp. On flatware, most often no date marks or dating conventions relating the date of manufacture can be found. So we are left to interpreting the styling of the makers marks, the changes or flaws in the pattern, the particular purpose of the item (i.e., pie fork, round soup, etc.), old catalogues and anything else we can use to decide a date of manufacture.

Sometimes and for limited periods in the history of a flatware manufacturer (i.e., Tiffany) a consistent approach to date marking can be found. Even so, when you look at a specific item in a particular pattern there are usually many inconsistencies in the markings. Therefore, dating a particular flatware item's date of manufacture is really more an interpretive art than an exact science.

You ask "Why was it [a patent date] left off and when did this start?" Sometimes the patent date wasn't left off but rather it was added later. A patent date mark could have been a part of the die or it could have been struck after they made the item. Remember, dies break, wear out, get modified, remade, retired or reintroduced and so forth. We must factor all of this in when attempting to date a particular items age.