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Hi - can anyone help identify the marks on this silver wine taster. The quality of the marks and my photographs are not brilliant but the marks are: on the rim, a man's head facing left. On the base, what seems to be a woman's head facing right with a 2 above in a deformed oval stamp. Makers mark P with an S above ( the other letters not visible), above a device, in a lozenge shaped stamp with straight middle sections. Many thanks John.

The man looking left is the 1819-38 mark for .800 silver in the departments.
To find the maker's mark I would have to go through more than a dozen books. It might be easier if I can localize the style of the handle, could you show both ends of the snake, and also type out the name of the owner, which you can probably read better than I can from the photo.
Maurice

Actually having looked closer at the mark, I can't give you much hope of identifying the maker. I noticed the mark has an ermine in the center, which usually means it is a Nantes, or a Bretagne mark. I can't find it in my books from that region. I would probably need to know the third letter of the maker's mark to help much. Still the photos would be nice to see.
Maurice

Many thanks for the information, Maurice. I have attached photographs of both ends of the snake handle. The owners name is very unclear but my best attempt is: J buy D POULIOU. Regards John

I am a little confused. What do you mean by J buy D? Pouliou is a name from Poitou-Charantes. One more thing, look at the marker's mark with a loupe and move it around, see it there is any chance you can figure out the last letter. I checked Nantes again and found nothing similar listed.
Maurice

Hello Maurice, I am sorry my description of the letters of the name is not very good. The only part of the name that I am quite confident with is: POULIOU. The letters before this are not at all clear. I have had another close look at the maker's mark under a loupe, but cannot see another letter. There is a dot or pellet after the P. I would of course be delighted if you could find out who the maker is, but it seems it will be a difficult if not impossible task, but I really do appreciate your effort in trying to solve this. Many thanks John

I am afraid you are out of luck, without the last initial, it would just be chance to run across the complete mark somewhere else. With the owner's family being mostly from Poitou-Charentes, and the ermine being in the mark, I would bet the maker is from Nantes or somewhere a little to the south of there.
Maurice

Hello,
I found the same mark in my documentation and the full mark is SPM. However, I don't have more details.
Maybe that this can help you.
Regards.

That should help, but it doesn't. M fits in the spacing, so I am sure you are right. Unfortunately, SPM is not a listed maker, at least not in any of my books. Evidently Sotheby's sold two, but their site seems to be down, and they just described the mark and couldn't find the maker either. I think the best bet is still Nantes, but their is no silversmith with a last name of M or P-M. There are a few books on Poitou silvermiths, but they are only available in the National Library in Paris.
Sorry,
Maurice

Thanks for trying Maurice and Zilver2 - your efforts much appreciated. John