Hallmarks - Help identifing

Hi,

I have a sterling silver ink blotter with some hallmarks that I'm trying to identify. There are four images. The first (from left to right) looks like a quarter moon pointing up with maybe some birds, there's a space, then three more images: a lion, a profile of a person in what looks like a helmet followed by the letter 'I'.

I have a picture at: http://pw1.netcom.com/~gartner1/hallmark2.jpg (The inset picture is the left most image, the other three are together)

Thanks for any help,

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Hi Jack,

Your silver blotter was made in the Netherlands. The lion mark (I am assuming that there is a '2' beneath the lion) indicates .833 standard silver, slightly less pure than sterling which is .925. The 'I' is a date letter. My best guess on this is 1943.

Jane

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Hi Jane,

Thanks for your reply. How do you know that it was made in the Netherlands? (I know virtually nothing about silver hallmarks, but would to like to learn more).

The date, 1943, is interesting. There's an inscription on it in what I originally thought was German, but in light of what you just told me might be Dutch. I'd love to know it's story.

Thanks again,

Hi Jack,

Many European countries have stringent marking requirements for silver (and also for gold and platinum). The requisite marks specify not only the purity of the alloy from which a piece is made, but also the maker and when and where the piece was tested (assayed).

These marks are a boon to the modern-day collector of antique silver, but they were originally intended solely as a form of consumer protection. Up until the eighteenth century, silver served not only as a useful and visible expression of a family's wealth, but also as an easily liquidated asset in times of political upheaval or financial hardship. (The cost of the labour to make a piece of silverware was usually relatively low compared to the scrap value of the piece).

In most European countries the government set the permissible alloy standards and testing protocols, and the powerful guilds policed their members to ensure both quality of alloy and quality of workmanship. Finished pieces were submitted to officially appointed assay offices to be independently tested and marked. Hence the English term 'hallmarks'. (American silver does not have hallmarks, it has marks). Should any deficiency in the quality of the alloy be detected at a later time, then both the maker and the officer responsible for testing could be readily identified. This testing procedure also provided a useful infrastructure for collecting taxes, and from time to time additional marks were struck to indicate payment of relevant government duties and levies.

With the change in states/boundaries in Europe over the centuries, the various silver marking systems have been extensively revised and reworked. The Netherlands introduced a unified national system in 1814. This system uses two lion marks (one rampant and the other passant - somewhat similar to the English lion passant mark but facing right rather than left and in a distinctively-shaped punch) to indicate the standard of the alloy. A unified system of date letters was also introduced in 1814 to replace the town-by-town system which had been operating since the sixteenth century. The 'head with a helmet/cap' mark is a tax mark.

The inscription could well be German. Holland was occupied by the Germans from May 1940 to May 1945.

Cheers,

Jane

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Jane, So how did they deal with fake hallmarks? I mean what kept any old Joe-Blow from making some stamps and making up marked items? Or assuming that it did happen, how do people now know that what they are seeing is real? Tina