www.925-1000.com

http://aircrashsites.co.uk/air-crash-si ... ad-moor-3/
The above site has a bit about Machat - not to do with the Wellington crash it starts with, but with the later fate of the trainees who survived that crash.

Oberleutnant Stefan Machat was a nightfighter pilot. There is an online reference to him shooting down a Wellington in Tunisia on 19 April 1943. If these beakers were trophies for his kills, might there be another somewhere with the April 1943 date?

If it is the weight of the silver, it is presumably a measurement in Troy ounces to which a measured weight in avoirdupois or grams would need to be converted.

According to Fallon's book on London marks Walter Searle entered WHS marks of various sizes between 1899 and 1906. He had entered into a partnership with the brothers Frank and Arthur Eady in 1897 but the partnership was dissolved in 1907 because he had used several thousand pounds of the firm's mon...

In England I normally see the decoration described as reed and ribbon. It can be found applied to various patterns of stem, thus Hanoverian reed and ribbon if I am right in seeing the stem turn up on your example. There is also King's Shape reed and ribbon (a relatively rare 18th century Boulton and...

I think the intertwined cursive initials read JSM. I cannot identify the coronet above them. It presumably identifies JSM's rank in the nobility but perhaps not the British nobility. The inscription is engraved the other way round from what is normal on British spoons which might perhaps suggest the...

In Britain the so-called maker's mark is actually the sponsor's mark. The sponsor can be the maker or, for example, a retailer who has commissioned items from the maker. The most likely explanation seems to me to be that Mappin and Webb commissioned teaspoons from Turner and Simpson, requiring them ...

Just a small further comment in case it is any help in trying to identify the crest. The bird on the spoons is "belled". The little circles at the back of each leg represent the bells that are strapped to birds kept for hunting. That is, it is not a wild bird of prey so it is most likely t...

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1352/13610430/24396422/412733981.jpg Flicking through Fairbairn’s Crests this is the, closest I get to the posture of the bird, described as an eagle, wings expanded, preying on a cony. I don’t think what we are taking as the bird’s nest in the engraving on the spoo...

I am not sure this is a Pelican in her Piety.That crest should show the pelican having pecked at her breast to draw blood, with the drops of blood falling to feed her young in the nest (the noble mother sacrificing herself for her young in hard times). While the heraldic pelican looks nothing like a...

The style of the jug is wrong for 1695. Also the detail of the hallmark (shape of the lion passant's cartouche). So it must be 1773. Afraid I cannot confidently identify WT.

I agree that stylistically the spoon is likely to be from around 1754 and that the very worn marks would be consistent with a London spoon. Sadly, I cannot offer a confident attribution for the maker's mark. There are a few known spoon makers with initials that might fit but a quick flip through Gri...

One possibility would be George Fox (C T & G Fox). His GF mark has a very distinctively shaped cartouche and I think I may discern a touch of the right outline in the first picture of the original post. The mark is illustrated on the ever useful Silvermakersmarks site if you want to check it out.

I should have checked the invaluable Silvermakersmarks site before replying. I think the maker's mark must be T.E for Thomas Ebbutt but at this date used by Hamilton and Inches who had taken over the Ebbutt business.

The badge for McCall or McAul of Scotland. The motto, Ferio Tego: I strike and defend.The marks for Edinburgh, I think 1952, but I don't know the maker whose mark is T.B.

In the absence of information from the horse's mouth (i.e a Mappin and Webb insider) I think a trawl through M&W advertisements might help clarify when the firm started using the Princes Plate brand and when it was replaced by Mappin Plate. Also when the firm stopped using other quality descript...

If a bit more about the original is of interest: http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/search-our-collections/collection-item/?item_id=25981&search=description='Iona%20silver'&startfrom=1 http://www.incorporationofgoldsmiths.org/content/media/Curle-Alexander-O-A-Note-on-Four-Silver-Spoons-and-a-Fille...

Interesting. The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein is an Offenbach operetta. Hortense Schneider was the leading lady when it was first produced. I'm not sure whether this reveals that her stage jewels were actually the real thing? Or did she have a real set made up for her private use?

The mask front suggests to me that the spoon might have been made for a place of entertainment such as a theatre, winter garden or hotel. If the RI stood for Rex et Imperator/Regina et Imperatrix/Royal Imperial it could have been something like a Royal Imperial hotel or club perhaps, but that is a f...

I think the engraving simply translates as "1892 from EM". The cyrillic EM can sometimes be transliterated as EM but also as Ye M depending on how we normally spell the Russian name represented by the E.