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Hello, don't really know what mark I am seeing here, but the style cries Hanau. Pieces in that "neo empire" style became popular around 1900 and were still in production in the 1950ies and 1960ies. Best wishes, Bahner
..........but, I am not familiarize with German silver so I am very confuse about Hanau. When you say "cries Hanau" are you saying that may be a fake?, Was all the produccion from Hanau fakes?.
I have few Hanau pieces so let me try and answer: Hanau, a german silversmithing center, were a law unto themselves, and an extraordinarily successful at that. They used to mimic other german towns marks, they would export to Great Britain their silverware and sell successfully. Please remember, those were the times(XIXc) when the compulsory mark Made in Germany, introduced at british manufacturers behest, was to denote an inferior product. Well, the public thought otherwise and Hanau silversmiths did not give a damn about it, they have applied the markings as they thought it fit.
Well! Please, accept my apologize for my great ignorance in this matter.
I have read on the web that the Hanau silver industry chose mark its output with fantasy marks. In my opinion my saltcellar is not marked with these ones.
All the silversmith in Hanau used to use these fantasy marks?
In any case, could you tell me a damning evidence that saltcellar is Hanau and not simply German?. Used to Hanau manufacture marked its pieces with the national mark of a crescent moon and the crown?
I wouln't say that to call your silver Hanau-like would be "damning".
It was a genuine silver after all, albeit rather mass produced and those
Hanau chaps did cater to the lower end of the market. Say- west german Volkswagen to british Rolls Royce some 50 years ago. And we all know
how it all ended, that competition with the cars: VW took RR to the cleaners.
Both "mass produced" and "lower end" are misconceptions. Like any silver center, the silversmiths of Hanau catered to all sectors of the market, providing objects for both palaces and middle class households. Yes, like Providence, Newark, Birmingham & Paris, they produced some mass produced trash, but they also produced a fair amount of remarkably fine, multiple and one of a kind, objects. The fact that they could, and did, mess about with markings really has no relevance to the quality of the work produced there.
