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Cape Silver Tablespoon - Rare Hallmark
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Reference: S1554
Period: Victorian
Year: 1840-1863
Silversmith: William Moore
Place: Cape
Price: $ 180.00
Weight: 60 grams
Dimensions: 21.7 cm
Condition: Excellent, perfect tip, has been polished.
Description: A Cape silver tablespoon in the Old English pattern, with a very rare Cape silver hallmark. The spoon is good quality and weight, well preserved, and has a colonial V shaped drop. The hallmarks include makers mark WM, and a very rare Cape silver stub mark that is not depicted in Cape Silver by Welz (Welz shows the regular Cape stub mark, used by 5 silversmiths including Moore, with 4 pseudo English marks). This stub mark has the lion passant, a gothic capital A, smiling leopards head and Queen Victoria duty mark, with detailed hair. As can be seen, this is a very different stub from the one usually seen, struck with a different punch (Welz mark 100). This rare stub mark is depicted by Heller (History of Cape Silver) as MM62 (pg 154), the regular Cape stub mark is MM61 (see also our articles section for an article on the Cape stub). The hallmarks are very well struck, this is a perfect example. A third stub mark, including an anchor, is also depicted in Heller (MM63), this same mark is also present in Morrison (Silversmiths and Goldsmiths of the Cape of Good Hope, pg 59), which was published in 1936. This is in fact an error, it is the common Cape stub mark but with wear to the Leopards head punch. We imagine this was incorrectly drawn as an anchor by Morrison, an error repeated by Heller, but not by Welz.
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Cape silver spoon - william moore
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Rare cape silver hallmarks
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Cape silver spoon - scale
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