French silver cup?

[Vantlicht]

A silver cup with on it: G * L * PIGHON. Marked with an unclear mark in a rectangle and kind of a bug. Who can help me to determine this cup? Thanks in advance!

[amena]

It is certainly French.
The bug is the trace left by the bigorne, and on the opposite side you find the Minerva.
If you look carefully somewhere you should find a lozenge mark, that of the silversmith.

[bijoux.expert]

These silver cups were regularly offered as baptismal presents to children in France, who would use them for many years. It was a requirement at boarding schools that the child bring a knife, fork, spoon and cup and these were therefore routinely engraved with the child's name to ensure their return when the child left the school.

You'll find the "bug" mark is exactly behind the Minerva hallmark, as the hallmark was struck on a specially engraved anvil called a bigorne which imparted a countermark of various insects behind the principal hallmark. This was done in order to make the creation and use of fake hallmarks particularly difficult. Although it was possible for skilled engravers to make fairly good fake hallmarks, it was impossible to reconstruct a fake bigorne anvil, as each object a faker could examine had only a very small part of the 90 or so insects.

[Vantlicht]

Thanks for the explanation!