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This is my first post, having following this forum for the past few years and gained an informal education in hallmarks from this extraordinary site. My thanks to all contributors.

I am hoping that someone can help identify the origin and maker of this large fiddle-handled platter or stuffing spoon with a single poorly struck hallmark and no known provenance. My best guess is that the spoon is Scandinavian, but please suggest the proper place to repost if this hunch is wrong. The back has an elaborately hand engraved and cross-hatched scroll design to the finial and bowl, with a stipple date of 1780 beneath A.A.D.N. As the hallmark seems incomplete, I am posting photos that show design and manufacturing details. The spoon weighs 159 grams and is 38 cm long. The bowl by itself is 12.7 by 8.4 cm and is nearly a perfect oval.

The poorly struck, apparently incomplete hallmark is on the front of the spoon, midway on the handle. The legible letters, in the top row, are two. The first looks to me like an E (but could be A, I, L or something else). The second letter is P. It seems there would have been at least one more letter to the full hallmark, perhaps an F, H, N, M. The numbers in the bottom row are 1, 7 and a faint outline of a 5 or 6, which could be an eighteenth century year (e.g., from 1750 to 1769). Above the hallmark is an interesting impression, evidently left by the smith’s tongs (?), that resembles the end of an arrow, like this >---.

For such a handsome and hefty spoon, there is only one lonely hallmark, and it is poorly struck. Furthermore, the spoon shows no signs of habitual use; the bowl shows virtually no signs of wear, not even on the rim or the underside. For these reasons, I have some doubt about the spoon’s age and silver content, although it certainly has the soft feel of coin silver or sterling. At the same time, many posts here discuss the lack of a full set of hallmarks on locally produced antique Scandinavian silver, so I am hoping that someone who has seen something similar in style and manufacture will comment. Any insight into the origin and maker, as well as the purpose of such an unwieldy instrument, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to read this and for any and all help---davidross.

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(admin photo edit - images too large - link only - see Posting Requirements )

I'm probably totally off the mark but I recently came across a mark that looks similar to the bottom letters on your spoon : the 12 loth mark of Kronstadt, Austria-Hungary, in the 1750's. It's on page 65 in Tardy's book.

I am not familiar with silver from that region at all so this is basically just a friendly greeting from another forum reader. May my wild guess entice an expert to comment.

Thank you, finnclouds, for the encouragement. I return your friendly greeting!

Hopefully a few more photos of the hallmark, taken from different angles and at higher contrast, will lead to a flash of recognition.

This was my first post, which elicited nary a welcome and not much response, no doubt due to its rather novelistic length.

Should any other lost soul stumble upon this rather forlorn old post, they will find all of the questions answered in these two threads:

http://www.925-1000.com/forum/viewtopic ... 47&t=29132

http://www.925-1000.com/forum/viewtopic ... 36&t=34349

On closer inspection, this grødske has some patina exactly where it should, as Hose described in the second thread.

DR
"God helps those who help themselves"