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Cannot identify the marking of these Birmingham items with ivory handle. Is the year letter b or h, the upper line is forked, what I do not find in my Bradbury's book of hallmarks. Who is the maker J.G ?
Regards silverfan

I think that the date letter is "b" for 1876 and that J.G is John Gilbert. His is definitely the mark on the knife blade with the "I" date mark for 1857. My only problem with the date mark on the forks is that I would have expected the punch to be an oval shape rather than the cut-corner rectangle. Hallmarks with duty marks from the letter cycle 1875 (a) to 1899 (z), in my experience, had oval punches with the cut-corner rectangles used for hallmarks without duty marks (starting from 1882 (h)). Here is an example of the "normal" 1876 mark:



and here are the 2 types of mark with the "h" of 1882:





It may be that your hallmark is an 1882 "h" mark (it is a little difficult to see exactly which letter it is), but with the wrong style of punch. 1882 seems to have been the first year when this dual system was in use so maybe somebody got confused and used the wrong one.

Phil

Hi Phil,
thank you very much for your detailed explanation. I now think it is b for 1876. I own 23 pieces, the other 19 pieces (not shown) are marked with Sheffield X for 1857 and JL for I think John Law. One fork is lacking. Do you think that there is a possibility to get the lacking fork?
Regards silverfan