www.925-1000.com

Thanks Trev, that's good to know. I have had a quick look for Firman on the Net and have come up with a long established (1677) company set up originally by Thomas Firman. Here is a link but they appear to be largely button makers. You need to scroll down until you hit Firman. A PV Firman existed in...

Can I take it then that the final word on this is that the whistle was made in London in 1866 by someone from the Firman/Firmin family who continued using the PF mark and ran a silversmithing business between the eras of PV and PS Firman/Firmin?

So since it is 1866, that would make it impossible that it was PS Firman and highly unlikely that it was PV Firman. It seems that your conjecture on a part of the family having a firm between the two might be correct Tom. Anyway I'm very happy to have found all this out and I thank you all. It still...

sorry, it's me again. Hopefully with a clearer picture. It's the spike in the middle of the upright that makes me wonder about 1866.

OK, I now have a better photograph and believe that the year is 1846:



Not certain however. Can anyone confirm or refute. It seems that some of the marks are upside down?

Tom, thanks for that great detail.

I've had better eyes than mine look at it and compare it with the date marks. The duty mark places it between 1838 and 1890 and the only two date marks it resembles in that period are 1864 and 1866 - we think. Problem is we can neither see the dot for the "i" of 1864 nor the tail of the L ...

Here is another pic. I know it is not good enough and may not assist in identification. I need to get a camera with macro and to clean up the marks. Please advise on how to get the dirt out of the marks - plain old soap and water or something more specialised? http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a302/...

Firmin is not listed as yet, still no clear image of his mark. There were two Phillip Firmins, which one depends on the date letter of your piece. Can you check the date letter chart and give us the precise year. Thanks, Tom Thanks. I will try. My eyes are not good enough to see the marks as they a...

Many thanks indeed and apologies for not making it easy - I had not posted a pic before or even used a digital camera. I had however looked at that weblink Tom and did not find Philip Firman or PF - which is why I came on here. Is he there? Does anyone know anything about him? Sorry for so many ques...

Thank you Waylander. I will post a pic as soon as I can.

The whistle came from a large country house in Carmarthenshire in Wales. The house was there, in different guises, since the 18h century. The whistle was left to me. There are four other marks on it but they are too small for me to read. I will probably need to get a jeweller to read them for me. Th...

I have a silver whistle with the maker's mark PF on it. Does anyone know who this is?