Date letter "e" - 1780 or 1820?

[Tricky625]

Hi there,

I am having issues identifying the London date mark on this sterling silver salts. Its either 1780 or 1820 I guess. From what I have read it should not have a duty mark, which it does not, the city mark should be the same for both dates (crowned leopard), I believe even the silversmiths mark (Charles Hougham) would not rule out either date either. I wonder if a definitive answer will ever be known? Unfortunately the date mark is not clear enough to me to be certain. From what I have seen online the date mark for 1780 and 1820 are remarkably similar, short for the bottom of the cartouche, which in this instance has piossibly been missed in the strike.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Feedback on the pictures is also welcome, this is my first post.

Thanks.

[dognose]

Hi Tricky,

Welcome to the Forum.

The marks look good to me for Charles Hougham and I would be quite happy dating the salt to 1780.

Great first post, perhaps you could narrow the images just a tad, to keep them within the 7" (18cm) width limits so that we can be sure those with smaller monitors can see the whole image (just nit-picking!).

Hopefully this post will be the first of many from you.

Trev.

[SteveDWollongong]

Hi Tricky,

I would like to clarify one point. You wrote that from your research there shouldn't be a duty mark at either date. This is incorrect. The duty mark was introduced in 1784, so only the 1780 date should not have one, immediately eliminating any confusion with 1820.

Cheers,
Steve

[Tricky625]

Thank you Trev & Steve, I will consider this case closed.

I totally missed on the whole duty mark thing, lesson learnt.

Thanks for the fast response. I will scale the pictures down a little next time.

Regards,