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Here we have a table fork of superb quality (95g - 3oz) in the rare Fiddle Husk pattern made in 1831.

My question is concerning the maker who seems to have the initals WHO or maybe WEO. I find it strange that the maker of such a high quality fork is in neither Jackson's or Grimwade.

Miles


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Hello Miles,

I've run WHO & WEO through Culme's directory just in case the maker continued to use the mark after 1838 but to no avail.

As you no doubt have already, I ran through Jackson's list of London makers' names as a second check but again nothing.

As you say the fork looks to be of too good a quality to be just a one off so unless this is an example of 1831 humour there should more of whose WHO out there somewhere.

Regards,
Mike
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Looking at the photograph, it looks as if the "H" is actually two letters, one letter superimposed over the other. I feel we may, despite the apparent conguency of the punch outlines be looking at an overstrike. If it was a buckle, and thirty years earlier I would suspect Edward Owen as one of the punchers, but I think he was dead by 1831.
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I think it is too neat to be an overpunch... But I cannot think for the life of me of anyone except William Holmes... who was working in the late 18thc as having anything like those initials. Might be worth exploring. Best wishes, Mike.
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Thankyou all for your replies; I don't think it's an overstrike, but perhaps the striker let the punch jump when he whacked it.

I don't mind admitting that I'm quite perplexed, and I cannot think of a reason why this maker is not recorded.

There was a Birmingham WHO, but he was much later. I think an email to the assay office is called for.

Miles
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Hi Miles,

Could your fork be Chinese Export?

Regards Trev.
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Hi Trev,

Anything's possible I suppose, but the hallmarks look normal to me. Did you have a maker in mind?
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Hi Miles,

I may be clutching at straws with the possibilty of a Chinese maker, the quality of Leopards Head mark is especially poor, and coupled with the fact that many of the Chinese silversmith's names start with a 'W', made me wonder about the possibility. Having said that, this was the period that John Smith was employed as the Engraver at Goldsmiths Hall (1815-1839) his work was below the standard we have come to expect from GH and I am was always surprised that they stuck with him for so long, he was known to have poor eyesight and the Wardens were often dissatisfied with his work. When you compare Smith's work with that of his successer, William Wyon (1839-1851) who had been the engraver at the Royal Mint, it shows Wyon to be in a different league, most obviously when you compere Smith's 'grinning monkey head' mark to Wyon's stylish 'Leopard's Head' mark.
In the end, I suppose the most likely explanation might well be a very well punched overstrike by a retailer, but this would be a disappointing result to such an interesting mystery.

Regards Trev.
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Hi,
I've just checked in Forbes' "Chinese Export Silver" for any corresponding marks or leads, but came up empty. Trev, as an interesting side note, there is a Chinese maker using the mark of E. Wyon, nothing is known about him, worked in the late 19th c.

Like Buckler, I believe it is an overstrike, a smaller original maker's mark being covered by the WH or WE section of the larger secondary mark, hence the distortion of these two letters, the bulk of the distortion seen on the second letter.

Working on the assumption that it is an overstrike, it would seem most likely the mark is of a provincial smith. Three letter marks are not that common and Grimwade only shows one in the Provincial marks section - IBO - for Joseph Boardman Orme of Manchester. He is about 40 years too early for this piece, but as British surnames beginning with O are not that common, I'm wondering if his son or grandson might have still been in the trade c.1830.

Regards,
Tom
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The answer is I suspect a misprint in Grimwade.
See page 363 of the 3rd Edition under GOLDSMITHS MARKS 1773 - 1837.
This gives a mark of HO for, wait for it ,
William Henry Osbourne of 122 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, entered 7th December 1821.
I am quite sure that an enquiry to Goldsmiths Hall will clarify if Grimwade, or more likely his typesetter, omitted a "W" in in front of the "HO"

Found it by accident when looking for a missing bucklemaker, J Baxter - silver clasp maker of around 1780 at 2 Hope Passage, Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row (Heal)
I still cannot find him of course !
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Well found!
Now begins the task of finding out more about this maker: what objects did he specialize in, did he make much silver, what were his working dates.

I'm indebted to you buckler.

Miles
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There is little doubt that the WHO mark is indeed, as buckler suggests, that of William Henry Osborn. It is highly unlikely, however, that Osborn was the actual maker of this fork. Careful examination of the mark reveals that it has been struck over that of another, probably the mark of one of the several specialist silver spoon and fork makers in operation in London at that time.

As for Osborn, you will find reference to him in John Culme's Nineteenth-Century Silver, Country Life, London, 1977, p. 75, as having taken over the shop of the retail silversmith and jeweller, Kensington Lewis when the latter withdrew from the trade about 1838.

Miss Ray
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It is very important to realise that the "makers mark" is actually a "sponsors mark" (the current legal term I think) . From the eighteenth century onwards the maker and the sponsor got further and furthur apart.
In this case 122 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury indicates that the sponsor was , as Miss Ray has pointed out, a retail establishment . It is also not necessary for an overstamp to be present to indicate that the maker and the sponsor are not the same. Often in the eighteenth century a skilled man, with no registered mark, would specialise in making one type of article, selling to shops etc, who would apply their own mark. Lave Coley (no registered mark) for example made small buckles for his cousin, Simeon Coley II, who had them assayed with his own registered mark . He also , in his own words, would "sell to pawnbrokers and silversmiths shops promiscuously".
One wonders if some of those ended up unmarked ans unassayed - and paid no duty.
By Victorian times several factories held stamps for retailers and had their product marked and assayed for them, although I believe the practise was frowned on by Goldsmiths Hall.
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