www.925-1000.com

It would probably be a baby's fork. Sets with small forks and spoons or pushers were popular gifts in the past.

The hallmark of the Minerva head has been employed since the 16th of July 1984, not 1994 as stated above. It is employed on small silver items of at least 800/1000 fineness, and is also struck on second-hand items if they have a French maker's mark. The maker's mark is more difficult, I haven't been...

Thanks for that.

A hors d'oeuvres service normally consists of four pieces, not three. A flat openwork spatula is missing from yours. These services were popular towards the end of the 19th century and continued until the 1930s. The handles are frequently hollow with a wax filling, and the blades and spoon parts are...

Vermeil, which is solid silver coated with a thin layer of gold, sometimes displays black oxidation and this can be unsightly. Polishing it off will work, however this also removes some of the gold plating and can lead to its total loss in some areas. The best solution is to dip the item in one of t...

The piece by Odiot is certainly of silver because A. Odiot never made silver-plated items and B. The lozenge-shaped maker's mark is reserved for items made in precious metals. Anything made of base metals is required to other-shaped marks, generally squares.

Looking at the cup, it looks all original to me. It would look very strange without the fruits, and as Zilvervik wrote, if the gilding on the inside is intact, the outside is almost certainly ok as well.

There are over 100 maker's marks to be found with the letters A T and at least five with the motif of a cross. The lower part of the mark is not clear on your object, and thus it's not easy to decide to which maker it should be attributed. Can you post of a photo of the title hallmark ? This can hel...

The hallmark, a beahive surrounded by bees between the letters A R is that of Adolphe Roustaing, later Roustaing and Compagnie, from 1909 to sometime after 1929.
Source - Dictionnaire des joailliers, bijoutiers et orfèvres by Remi Verlet.

The mark to the right is without any doubt the French eagle hallmark for 18 carat gold. The oval mark to the left is the French import mark. It's not clear enough to find in my books, it seems to read Sté C O or Sté C C with what looks like an open hand in the centre. Sté is the abbreviation for Soc...

Given a choice, I would go with the Ministry of Culture website, it tends to be more accurate though a bit frugal with information.
The Dictionary of Hallmarks by Verlet is full of errors, my example has loads of annotations and Postits.

I'm hopeless on 18th century marks, best to ask the forum or check them.in Beuque.

The Mercury head hallmark in a cut-out frame was in fact used from the 11th July 1840 until 31st March 1879. This mark was used for both gold and silver, and the problems caused by this ambiguity were resolved by the introduction of new Mercury export marks on 1st April 1879 with separate marks for ...

Your dish was made in Paris by Callot sometime after 1838 and stamped with the Parisian version of the Minerva hallmark. (There is in fact a difference between the Minervas struck in Paris or the departments.) Then, at some point before 1860 the dish made its way to Nice where it was brought to conf...

According to Le Dictionnaire des Joailliers, Bijoutiers et Orfèvres en France de 1850 à Nos Jour s, the mark could be that of Vatard and Doucet, after 1850. Thed rawing of the hallmark in this reference differs slightly from yours but this is not unusual, a lot of the designs seem to have been based...

I would concur with the attribution of Alexandre Delaselle. When a maker's mark stamp is worn out, a new one is engraved by hand, and there are almost always some slight differences between them. Also, the assay office would never have accepted two jewellers with the same initials to have the same i...

I haven't been able to find the maker in my references, but may I suggest the design in the centre is a toboggan? I was in the workshop of Chirol and Hipp two weeks ago doing research on maker's marks, and they showed me their hallmark which contains a toboggan, listed as luge in French registers. Y...

The best solution is to hold a loupe against the camera lens of a telephone and take some great photos. This will make it much easier to identify your marks.

It's first grade silver, 950/1000 and the little star at the bottom right shows it was hallmarked in Amiens, north of France.
I can't identify the maker, however.

I can't access any of the sources in France. However, the one I was interested in, Old French Plate; Its Makers and Marks by Wilfred Cripps 1893 was readily available by just looking for it on Google and then clicking on the PDF copy on US.Archive.org. https://ia802209.us.archive.org/31/items/oldfre...