www.925-1000.com

This tea set was given to my father in around 75 in Hong Kong

It has no marked except "sterling silver", one piece is badly marked but the rest are clean.

could it be american?

does any one recognise the pattern? perhaps maker

It could be sterling, but it could also be just marked sterling. Interesting that it took 5 or 6 attempts to get the stamp set to mark it sterling...never really seen that on actual sterling. In addition nothing about it says anything outstanding and it has a look of silver plated white metal.

mmm.... I guess the only way to find out is to take a graver to the bottom and test it

J

Well my test conclude it is sterling silver;

I used piece of fine silver scarp and a piece of .925 to compare the colour of an acid test. The darkness matched the .925 with the fine silver being much darker.

Using an engraver to remove some silver on the underside the acid produce he same colour in the hole as on the surface. By comparison a piece of genuine plate reacted similar to fine silver which is what i would expect

Julian

The set is what I would call Queen Anne style, which has been very popular in many parts of the world for at least 150 years (surely much longer in the UK). The fluting forms a heart-shape in the center, which I have always thought of as a 20th century variation, although I am not an expert in this area.

One possible candidate for country of origin is Japan, from immediately after WWII. I have seen several teasets marked "sterling" or "sterling silver" only, with no maker's or national marks, that were thus identified from provenance or from original packaging. However, most of these sets were either in a very plain modern style or included some Asian element of design. For instance, see this post:

http://www.925-1000.com/forum/viewtopic ... 13&t=34406

That a very hesitant hand seemed to need a lot of practice to mark the piece as well as the rather light stamping also supports this theory of immediate post-WWII Japan. The Queen Anne pattern, on the other hand, does not lend itself to this theory.

Another possibility is that the set was made in Hong Kong but for some reason, never fully stamped. Unfortunately, without additional marks or provenance, the origin may never be known.

Regards,

David R

Many thanks David