posted 01-12-2007 01:00 AM            

Hello,

I joined to better educate myself. I am interested in collecting Georgian English Silver. I realize there are many fakes out there and want to guard against making bad purchases. I wanted to share my first purchase to get your learned opinions. I bought this pair of basting(?) spoons from Canada.

The first 1764 spoon (above) measures 7 7/8 inches long and the bowl is 3 inches x 1 5/8 inches at the longest and widest points. It features a date letter J, duty mark and maker's mark of TG or TE then WC.

The second 1771 spoon (below) measures just a tad under 8 inches long and the bowl is 3 1/8 inches x 1 3/4 inches at the longest and widest points.

The hallmarks are lion rampart, crowned leopard's head, Date letter Q (1771) and maker's mark W.S in a rectangle..

Both spoons have an engraved crest of a standing lion?

Is this a family crest or common decorative device. Was it engraved later, perhaps in Canada? Both spoons seem to be in good shape with light scratching.

Any specific comments or general impressions about these spoons?

posted 01-12-2007 04:48 AM            

Please do not think I am being rude, but a brief study of Hallmarks should be on your agenda as a priority. The following comments plus a closer study of a hallmarks book (ideally Jackson but a most pocket versions are fine) will start you off.

The first spoon has a date letter (not shown on your post) makers mark a Lion Passant Guardant, and what looks like a George Head duty mark.

First Priority at looking at marks is to find the Assay mark - in this case the Lion Passant Guardant. This is a Lion on all fours, walking to the left with his face looking at you. In 1822 he ceased being guardant (in London) and then looked in the direction he was walking (i.e. you see his side face profile) This replaced in London the 1740-1756 mark, also Lion Passant Guardant- but in a totally different punch - which has an indent to each side and two or three cusps at the bottom. So you now can say - if this is London it dates to 1756 to 1822. So far so good. But the spoon has what you think is a duty mark. The George Head. This was introduced in 1784 (in one form) and modified very quickly in 1785 to the normal cameo punch. So does the spoon post date 1784? If this mark is a George head, then date must be 1785 to 1822. Actually I do not think it is a George Head duty mark as it appears to face to the left.So what is it? There appears to be no town mark, but could our George Head be the Crowned Leopards Head of London looked at the other way up? Which would shift our dating to 1756 -1784. Does that fit with the makers mark period and the style of the spoon? Another clue to which assay office is the form of the Lion. After a few months you will begin to easily notice minor differences to the Lion at this period which are diagnostic of provincial offices but do not worry about that now. It looks like London to me, although the main differences is the (obscured) bottom of the punch. Par for the course.

So who is the maker? Looking at Grimwade (IMHO the only good source for London marks of the period)we cannot find it - least I cannot! But some time ago on the forum there was mention of a Thomas Eustace (Exeter) and William Chawner (London) partnership. No one could recall the source of this information but I suspect that this is a correct attribution.

Incidentally the Lion Rampart is a lion standing on his hind legs. Usually Scots although some Dutch and continental silver bears this mark.

Crests are a total nightmare. Numerous families used the same crest, and although given a family it is sometimes possible to say which crest they may have used, it is almost impossible except in very unusual crests to work back from the crest to a specific family.

As stated at the beginning of this post - Welcome to the Terminally Confused but happy family of silver buffs

posted 01-12-2007 08:53 AM            

7 7/8 to 8 inches - size of table spoon, basting spoons are 11 1/2 inches and plus.

For identifying crests, there is "Fairbairns Book of crests" - Clive is right, the same crests were used by many families. Sometimes you find an item with two crests, which makes identification then so much easier.

posted 01-12-2007 11:11 AM            

Passant = standing, one front paw in the air, face looking in the direction his body is going

Guardant = same as Passant except his head is turned to the side so he is looking at you

Reguardant = same as Passant except this head is turned all the way around so he is looking at his tail

Statant = same as Passant only all four paws are on the ground

Statant Guardant = same as Statant only his head is turned so he is looking at you

Couchant = he is laying down, looking forward

Rampant = he is standing up on his hind paws, front paws in the air in front of him, head is facing forward looking in the direction his body is facing

Rampant Guardant = same as Rampant only his head is turned so he is looking at you

Rampant Reguardant = same as Rampant only his head is turned all the way around so he is looking at his tail

Sejant = he is sitting down

Dormant = he is laying down with his head on his front paws sleeping

and there are more.

The crest that is engraved on your spoons is indeed a crest - it is not a coat of arms. A crest is a design that is awarded to many holders of coats of arms (not all) and is displayed as an addition to the coat of arms on top of a helmet drawn above the coat of arms. The line of circles at the bottom of a typical crest represents a twist of rope. If there were a coat of arms engraved on your spoons you would have a bit of a chance of figuring out to whom it belonged since every coat of arms is unique - though most are very difficult to research without spending a lot of money having the College of Heralds go through their records. Unlike coats of arms, crests are not unique to individuals. They seem to have been added as purely decorative and non-heraldic engravings in many cases - sometimes at the time it was sold to make it more attractive to buyers, or sometimes decades or centuries later, again to make it more attractive. I know of no way to tell the difference between heraldic crests and pretty decoration crests on old silver when there is no coat of arms.

posted 01-14-2007 03:13 PM            

Secondly those made deliberately at a contemporay period. The maker probably faked assay marks as well ! He probably used slightly substandard silver, or was not qualified by birth or apprenticeship to register. Personally I find these marks quite acceptable as they are contempory with the piece although Goldsmiths' Hall would not agree with me ! The names of John Yardley and George Wintle as offending marks spring to mind.

Thirdly , and probably the most common, is sheer reluctance to bother to register a mark. Why go to Goldsmiths'Hall specially to register a new mark - which as it required your signature you had attend in person. You would still be able to have your silver assayed. Your workmen or apprentices were known to the Hall - and despite assurances by the assay office to the contary they did not check each piece against your mark in the register.
This must be borne in mind when you see a mark as being registered on a specific date. It may have been in use for months prior.

We recently moved. Legally I and my wife had to re-register our driving licences immediately. Like most people it was done several weeks or months after the move. Many people never bother at all. Human nature does not change. They had the same attitude to red tape as we do !

posted 01-14-2007 06:31 PM            

quote:

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Family Crest on Sixteenth-Century Gold Ring Tentatively Identified

Researchers John Brooke-Little of the College of Arms in London and American independent scholars Barbara Hird and lebame houston have tentatively identified the family whose crest appears on a European sixteenth-century gold ring found at the Croatan Native American site in Buxton, North Carolina, last October.

The signet ring, used for placing a family crest into wax seals, has a cut out picture of a lion passant (walking lion). It is the first item of specifically sixteenth-century European origin found at the Croatan village site. With the lion’s plume-like raised tail and seemingly prancing step, the crest is distinctive enough for possible identification through armorial records in the College of Arms. The only family in the College of Arms records with that crest is the Kendall family.

Two men with the surname Kendall were part of the Roanoke colonization efforts, both during the 1585 to 1586 expedition. One, named in extant records simply as Master Kendall, was listed as a colonist with Ralph Lane. Lane’s colonists settled on Roanoke Island and explored the region around the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds from July 1585 to June 1586. The other Kendall was Abraham Kendall, who was with Sir Francis Drake when his ships came to check in on Lane’s colony in June of 1586 and ended up taking Lane and his men back to England.

There are several times when either Kendall could have had contact with the Croatans. During the spring of 1586, Lane sent Edward Stafford and twenty men to Cape Hatteras, the location of Croatan, during a period of hardship for the colonists. Master Kendall could have been a member of this party or he could have traded the ring with Croatans who visited Lane’s settlement on Roanoke Island. It was Stafford’s group of men who, on June 9, 1586, spotted Drake’s fleet, lit signal fires, and met the boats from Drake’s ships that came ashore. It is possible that one of the ships’ boats carried Abraham Kendall to Hatteras Island. The ring could have been traded or lost by either Kendall during this time.

Adding to the confusion is the possibility that Lane’s Master Kendall and Drake’s Abraham Kendall were the same person. After sailing his fleet of twenty-seven ships north from Cape Hatteras and meeting Lane, Drake offered Lane several sailing vessels and the service of two of his captains, including Abraham Kendall. Soon afterwards, a storm sank some of the vessels, and Lane ended up returning to England with Drake rather than staying on Roanoke Island. Because a master in sixteenth-century nautical terms is a person who commands a vessel, Lane’s Master Kendall could be Drake’s Abraham Kendall. However, the title master had non-nautical uses as well, and Lane’s Master Kendall is mentioned only on a list of men who spent the year on Roanoke Island. Still, the list could have been inaccurately labeled and the two Kendalls could be one and the same.

Hird and houston’s research plan is to do a genealogical investigation of Abraham Kendall to see if the lion passant crest belongs to his family line. If not, they will try to research the various Kendall family lines in hopes of identifying Lane’s Master Kendall.

While the connection of the crest to the Kendall family is strong, it is not certain. Though the Kendall family has a recorded use of the lion passant in the College of Arms registry, not every family that used a crest did so with official sanction. As Brooke-Little is quoted in the Manteo, North Carolina, Coastland Times, “Elizabethan Kings of Arms were not all that fussy about authorizing crests. It was not all that unusual for an armigerous family to adopt a crest of their own design” (“Researchers Link Ring From Dig at Cape Hatteras to Kendall Family,” 21 March 1999: A15). Such crest designs were not recorded along with the coat of arms. In addition, as houston is quoted in the same article, “In Tudor England, Officers of Arms owned the records of grants they made to individuals and they did not always will their papers and records to the College [of Arms]” (A15). Even so, the record is strong enough that Brooke-Little, Hird, and houston feel that the crest does belong to one of the Kendalls connected to the 1585-1586 colonization attempt.

If the ring’s original owner can be identified, the next step will be to determine the significance of finding the ring at the Croatan site. The ring’s band is cut and curled in such a manner that it appears to have been worn by a Native American on a cord around his or her neck. The question will be whether identifying the ring’s owner will give insight on how the ring passed from European to Native American hands. The value of identifying the ring’s original owner was put into perspective by Ivor Noël-Hume, who is quoted by the Virginian-Pilot as saying, “Instead of being a piece of pottery, you can say, ‘This belonged to that man.’ That’s more interesting. . . . But there’s a difference between being interesting and being significant” (“1580s Ring Has no Lost Colony Link,” 11 March 1999: B3).

Whether just interesting or significant in interpreting the colonization attempts of the English in the 1580s, the ring is the first material connection between the English colonists and the Native Americans on Hatteras Island who played an important role in the late sixteenth-century story of cultural engagement.

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posted 01-24-2007 09:48 PM            

Nevertheless, the Restoration of Charles II brought about a new confidence among royalty, nobility, and wealthy merchants that can be measured by increased demand for luxury goods, particularly silver. Coins were being clipped and melted down at such a rapid rate that in order to put a halt to the practice the standard was raised from 92.5% to 95.8% in 1697.