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I love silver and am an avid collector of interesting items. I have never owned any Russian silver but have recently bought (what the dealer says) is a silver caviar dish. it is quite unusual with pierced fretwork on a silver base and a lovely beaten copper insert but what gets me is the hallmark. it says 84 (which is upside down when viewed from looking straight on) and an oval shape with what appears to be a horse on it's back hooves with front legs in the air. When looking at the punch marks from the reverse it looks as though they have been cut from another object and inserted into the base. There are no other marks on the dish, anywhere! Now, do i have a bastard piece and if i do can i take it back to the dealer and demand my money back?

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Can anybody give me any details about this piece, it was sold to me as A silver Russian Caviar dish with Copper insert

Many Thanks

Hi,
Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with Imperial Russia. Fineness mark ``84`` is faked.I suspect the base is old German silver piece and the basket was attached to it. Will try to identify the mark. The utmost example of unscrupulous seller.
Regards

Many Thanks, It is as I expected, I got it home and looked to the rear of the piece behind the stamps and i could see where it had been plugged and rubbed to try and blend it into the other silver. Surely the basket should be stamped somewhere? if it is indeed silver

We can only speculate, but definitively the base belonged to something else.Marks are struck on its side, I doubt they were transposed. Faked ``84`` was added.What you see on the back of the base (in the middle of it?) might be an attempt to hide the place where whatever was soldered to it, or a hole obliterated.
Complex pieces like this are supposed to have multiple sets of marks (the basket).
Again, this piece has nothing in common with Russian silver.Russians have a colloquial term to describe this type of fake: ``constructor``, meaning assembled from several pieces.
Regards

AG2012 wrote:We can only speculate, but definitively the base belonged to something else.Marks are struck on its side, I doubt they were transposed. Faked ``84`` was added.What you see on the back of the base (in the middle of it?) might be an attempt to hide the place where whatever was soldered to it, or a hole obliterated.
Complex pieces like this are supposed to have multiple sets of marks (the basket).
Again, this piece has nothing in common with Russian silver.Russians have a colloquial term to describe this type of fake: ``constructor``, meaning assembled from several pieces.
Regards

I tend to agree, I did hesitate when i first saw it. For example Russian caviar dishes are usually gilt on the inside or have glass liners, this one has a copper liner?? seems to be an odd metal to line a caviar dish with. It isn't really a Russian form although I have seen a pierced silver basket that is claimed to have been made in The Ukraine as you can see from the picture there are similarities especially the form of the handle. I have contacted the seller and made him aware and he is going to return my money..he was very pleasant and apologised.