Gorham 1904 Heavy Dome Cover Vented

[Traintime]

Guessing the world is running out of dome covers as I can't seem to find anything like this...not even a match on the knob finial/handle. I expect it's not a butter as it has been vented all the way around. But what would it have covered? Heavy enough for hotels or estates, maybe a bit too much for most households. Engraved monogram or logo of R-within-H ("RH" or "HR"). Date symbol is 1904. Additional factory codes or markings are O..A..O..C.
Approximately 5-6" diam. x 5-6" height.

[AG2012]

Hi,
There are butter dishes with pierced cover (both silver and porcelain).
At 6`` I cannot think of anything else.
Regards

[Traintime]

How 'bout this oddity on Mappin & Webb pages..a dome on an egg steamer? I don't doubt that vented domes exist, but does that not defeat the purpose of a cold vault before the days of air conditioning (c.1929-on). Might someone want to vent the aroma of soft cheeses in a similar type dish? Breads/muffins seem to be no-venters. Puddings? Oatmeal/Porriges?

At any rate, some older Gorham plate versions of this sectional finial date c.1888-92 origins. This may have been a slightly later modernization of those. Or is it a throwback? The vent design give me the sense of an early switch toward Craftsman, but even that might be retrospective.

[Aguest]

:: Could this not be the dome top to an "egg coddler" and I know they exist because I have seen a Tiffany egg coddler in person, it had chicken feet ::
Here is an example in silver plate, it seems as if sterling silver examples are rare, also I can't recall ever seeing a date-code-symbol on a piece of Gorham silver plate, usually I see them on sterling silver, and even on sterling silver they are uncommon ::

[Aguest]

I think the purpose was not to keep the egg cold, rather the purpose was to vent the steam created by the egg-coddling process because otherwise the steam would build up inside the dome and create pressure which could cause your hand to scald when you removed the dome :::

[Traintime]

Oddly, even the HanksCraft egg boiler/cookers (w/glass poacher insert) of the 1930's used a non-vented metal dome (stainless with knob) for this work. Venting would make sense with steam, but there a a lot of good ideas with poor execution over time..that's why they disappear (eg. "As Seen on TV!"). Wish I could locate the original base pieces to this one so we would know for sure.

[Traintime]

Gorham snippet posting (by Trev.) for Hotel Hollenden 1891 showing drawing with some items having similar looking finials (long neck, half-acorn shape, wedges): viewtopic.php?f=38&t=39068&p=162651&hil ... en#p162651