Chile coat of arms ashtray

[Dael69]

Maybe is not made in Chile, maybe is not even silver :/ This is the mark I found "900 SINN"

Ill appreciate any info about this old item.

[Dael69]

Found out "SINN" could be for Louis Ernest Sinn Baliman, born in Switzerland who was consul in Chile and who represented several fine jewelry and watch companies aroun 1873. See http://www.sinn.cl/historia.htm. There is a "mistake" in the coat of arms, there is a horse instead of a huemul a mistake made by several artists that didnt know about the Huemul. See http://www.idtg.org/archive/tag/coat-of-arms-of-chile/

[Dael69]

I didnt find anything else about "SINN". It would be nice to find another item marked with that word. The plate or ashtray is extremely heavy for its size. I showed it to my friend from Chile and he inmediatly noticed the mistake with the Huemul-Horse design and also he pointed that the words "República of Chile" in the plate are also wrong, it should be "Por la fuerza o la razón" because thats what the actual coat of arms has.

This is a pic of the coat of arms in the plate:


I already wrote a letter to "Casa SINN" hoping to ID the plate.

Best regards,
Elías C.

[dognose]

Hi Elías,

Welcome to the Forum.

Your mention that the item is "extremely heavy for its size" rings alarm bells. In German the word for pewter is 'Zinn', and I wondering if the item is in fact silver. Pewter quality in some countries is represented by the percentage of tin that in contains, usually around 90% and the '900' may be a decimal expression of that. Just speculating of course, and I hope I'm proved wrong, but it may be worthwhile getting the metal tested, at least it may dismiss the above.

Trev.

[Dael69]

That would explain why I cant find anything about "900 SINN". I hope it is not Zinc alloy but I still believe it is very old item. Will bring it for a silver test next week, thanks a lot for the advice.

It is 65mm diameter, a little more than 1mm thick and weights 61.0 grams

[Traintime]

Trev's right as usual. I've encountered this myself a few times. This guy really does have a dog's nose for sniffing out the facts.