www.925-1000.com

My friend recently acquired two silver carving (?) forks and asked me to try and find out as much as possible about them.
Here's the first one:

http://b.imagehost.org/0194/sakute1.jpg

http://b.imagehost.org/0006/zenklai1.jpg

With the help of this site's Hallmarks gallery, I came to conclusion, that it's German, made by Fritz Gerber & Co sometime between 1900-1920.

Here's the second one (sorry, don't have a full photo of it yet):

http://b.imagehost.org/0204/sakute.jpg (admin photo edit - images too large - link only - see Posting Requirements )

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This one appears to be made in Austria-Hungary, at aproximately the same time as the first one. I haven't been able to identify the makers mark though - looks like letters "KM" to me.
Both forks have two sets of markings, and I am a little bit puzzled about the second one, the one, that is identical for both. The marks appear to be russian, used in Russia before October revolution in 1917. As I've found out from online resources, items, imported into Russian Empire had to be assayed and appropriately marked, so I've come to conclusion, that these forks where re-marked on importing. This theory ties in nicely with presumed date and also with geographical location of the items - they have been bought in Lithuania, that was a part of Russian Empire at the time.
Any information on makers, dating, history of these forks would be greatly appreciated.

Hello, the piece with the German „K.A.“ mark was made by Fritz Gerber of Görlitz, Germany. See here under Gerber

http://www.925-1000.com/Fgerman_marks_a1884.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

for more info. As to the Austrian-Hungarian piece I am not so sure. The “P” beside Diana’s head is for Pest (part of Budapest, Hungary). The mark seems to be a little worn, but the maker might be Kohut from Pest. The Russian marks on both pieces are import marks of the Russian >Tallinskaya juvelirnaya fabrika< (this is not the scientific transcription). The letter “H” is for the assay office at Tallin (in earlier times known as Reval) and was introduced for Tallin in 1946. The “5” is a date letter and stands, so I believe, for 1955. I believe the “P”(the Cyrillic letter for “R”) stands for the fees that were paid when this was imported. I have seen several pieces marked with Russian import marks exactly like these, all for the “Tallinskaya” and all with the number 5. I wonder why this is. Best wishes, Bahner

Thank you very much, Bahner. I will try to do some more research on Russian sites.