www.925-1000.com

so on the forks and spoons, of which I'm trying to find the silversmith, on the topside are marks that appear to be insects.
I did not find anything remotely similar in my research.
They all seem slightly different and they are not bound in a cartouche or diamond.

They all have the Minerva stamp and I think they are from the late 1800s

Thoughts?

https://imgur.com/gallery/56FByid



here are just some of the insects

Llook the other side.
And search " bigorne"

Hi,
Everything is explained here:
http://www.silvercollection.it/dictionarybigorne.html

Regards

Wow thank you all...super interesting...I never knew about this.

What a wonderful rabbit hole i've been in over the last few days.

Thank you Thank You Thank you.

Ok one more question on this subject.

HOW DID ONE CARVE OUT SUCH INTRICACIES IN SUCH A SMALL SCALE?!?!

Seriously baffled by that ...you can see the leg thorns and abdomen segmentation.

In regards to the question as to HOW these insects were engraved on the die, the French mint, which supplied hallmarks and the engraved BIGORNE anvils, used a reducing mill, which is based on a pantograph. In order words, a large model would be engraved in a softer material, even plaster, as the then point would run all over its surface and transmit its position to an engraving tool which was geared to exactly reproduce what was sensed but in a much smaller scale.
This technique was used to make coin and medal dies and was even used by Lalique to engrave the ivor y figures he would set in his jewellery.

bijoux.expert wrote:In regards to the question as to HOW these insects were engraved on the die, the French mint, which supplied hallmarks and the engraved BIGORNE anvils, used a reducing mill, which is based on a pantograph. In order words, a large model would be engraved in a softer material, even plaster, as the then point would run all over its surface and transmit its position to an engraving tool which was geared to exactly reproduce what was sensed but in a much smaller scale.
This technique was used to make coin and medal dies and was even used by Lalique to engrave the ivor y figures he would set in his jewellery.

Thank you so much for the explanation.

Totally makes sense too. Crafty buggers

(admin photo edit)
The anvil engraved with insects, the bigorne, was an integral part of the hallmarking process and the jeweller or silversmith was required to leave the bigorne imprint visible after polishing. Because of the large variety of insects and the habit of the hallmarkers to move the objects being marked to different positions on the bigorne, the mark tended to be virtually unique for each object hallmarked.

Hi bijoux.expert,

Welcome to the Forum.

Your image is not showing.

Trev.

Yes, I know the image is not showing! I am busily trying to find the EDIT button that FAQ claims is somewhere.......

bijoux.expert wrote:[img][IMG]https://www.hebergeur-image.com/upload/78.196.157.144-6298d8a2666d1.jpg[/img][/img]
The anvil engraved with insects, the bigorne, was an integral part of the hallmarking process and the jeweller or silversmith was required to leave the bigorne imprint visible after polishing. Because of the large variety of insects and the habit of the hallmarkers to move the objects being marked to different positions on the bigorne, the mark tended to be virtually unique for each object hallmarked.

That is so cool...thanks again

bijoux.expert wrote:Yes, I know the image is not showing! I am busily trying to find the EDIT button that FAQ claims is somewhere.......

I don't recall seeing an EDIT feature ( they must have taken their cues from Twitter).

The tag has an extra /img....I just cut/pasted the address into another Browser Tab.

Maybe the moderator can edit out the extra /img.