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Hello,
I'm not very familiar with British Silver but I purchased this piece as an inexpensive chance (.50 cents) at a tag sale yesterday and I think I did very well. I'm looking for possible advice or confirmation of my research. William Hutton and sons, .925 sterling, London, 1900. It weighs in at 2.2 pounds. Any help would be welcome.
Thanks
It seems in proper order, with a maker's mark and a lion passant (indicates 92.5% purity) and the leopard's head is the city mark for London, and the date mark of "e" is the year date when the piece was received at the assay office [+]
Possibly this is a vanity tray which would have held beauty products and perfume. There are many different types of trays and "salvers," this could have been used for something else [+] The family crest on the center could be researched if you so desired, occasionally you can link the object to a historical person or event [+]
Just from my experience, I haven't found any "fake" British hallmarks, and it would be very difficult to produce an object of this quality nowadays, not that it is impossible because there is a lot of fakery in the Russian Silver market, as well as the Tiffany Silver market, and occasionally you will find a recently punched "STERLING" mark on an old silver plate object (a base-metal object with a thin layer of silver, basically zero silver content) [+]
Maybe keep looking for other objects at the tag sale?
Thank you for the information,
I was hoping that I had read the marks correctly as it made for quite a large find. It seems that the basic rules for jewelry buying that I am familiar with still apply, I just need to learn more about this particular hallark system. I guess a copy of Ian Pickford's book is in order for my reference shelf. I had not considered the vanity platter idea so thank you for that thought as well. Hopefully it is the start of a new collection for me.
