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This mark has been seen before but is it Joseph Hicks’ mark? A barred I and H very crude punch.






Nice little set of 6 brightcut teaspoons weighing a light 61g total.

Matt

Hi Matt,

Almost certainly a mark for Joseph Hicks. As for dating, I think it will be between 1st January 1787 (when the Exeter Assay Office stopped using the incuse duty head) and 5th July 1787 (when the duty punch cartouche was altered to mark the doubling of duty).

See Tony Dove's article in Silver Studies - 2007.

Miles

That’s great, many thanks Miles for the info. It’s really good to be able to date these within a narrow time frame.

As always much appreciated,

Matt.

Excuse the typo in my last post.
I meant to write '5th July 1797' and not '1787'.

Miles

So far we only know of the following marked with IH:

2 Sucket spoons of almost identical appearance
1 set of 6 brightcut teaspoons

Both the sucket spoons are marked with a duty mark and a letterbox lion:





My teaspoons are marked with the same sideways duty mark but with a wavy bottomed lion. If only the Exeter records existed for the unusual sucket spoons it would give us a more accurate date but maybe the sideways punching of the duty mark will appear on some larger silver that can be dateable to a year period.

Just to add there is another silversmith with the initials JH:

Joseph Hart of Plymouth. He arrived from Mannheim in 1770 aged 14 and by 1779 he was successful enough to contribute to the war levy. In 1798 he is described as a silversmith. He died in 1822 leaving £700-£800 of silver and gold and £400 in banknotes.

This mark is also noted on tablespoons dated 1787 and 1788 and on sugartongs.

This mark can be dated 1787-1788.

Other marks show that this mark overlaps the use of Josephs JH mark.

This is just what I’ve been looking for, a dateable example. It’s a brightcut tablespoon dated 1787.