Cork silver - John Whitney

[scorpio]

This is a very rare Cork maker's mark, that of John Whitney. He is mentioned in Cork Silver & Gold but the authors do not show a mark for him in that publication. He was apprenticed to George Lee, 18th December 1762 per Cork Silver and Gold and worked as a silversmith from 1770 to 1788 according to Sir Charles Jackson's 1905 reference work.

The mark is on a snuffer's tray sold in the UK earlier this year and is depicted in Ian Pickford's 2009 revised Jackson's Silver & Gold Marks, page 715.





The mark is also stamped twice but without a STER mark on a silver cup, which was in an American private collection until 2015.





I'm not aware of any other silver items with Whitney's maker's mark although it is possible others will turn up in the future.

[scorpio]

Actually, looking more closely at the photo of the silver cup mark, perhaps STER is the blurred mark at top.

[dognose]

Hi scorpio,

Many thanks for sharing this information with us. It's appreciated.

Trev.

[Traintime]

The quality mark on the cup, read upside down from the photo orientation, would seem to be the full word "STERLING" having been poorly struck twice....one can read "GING" with the visible "R" positioned for the leftward strike. Point is, you now can expect two possible ways his wares are marked, "STER" or "STERLING".

[scorpio]

Indeed, it could be what's left of a STERLING mark. I can see what looks to be 'ING' but the letter before can't be a 'G' as you suggest but would have to be 'L' if STERLING but doesn't really look like an L, perhaps just badly distorted. What looks like an 'R' over to the left is incuse so not the same punch as the visible 'ING', which is intaglio. Not sure what that 'R' could be.

[Traintime]

If the first stamping of STERLING was poor, leaving only a clear ING, then left shifting on an attempted re-stamp could leave a G before the ING. This second stamp to the left would line up with that faint remnant of an apparent R. Whatever the reason, both attempts either failed or were obliterated.

[Traintime]

Maybe somebody tried to gouge out the original R hoping to make it readable...people do crazy things.