www.925-1000.com

This is a fruit-form (pear), shaped silver spice box used by Jews after the Sabbath in the late 18th and 19th centuries in present day Poland and Ukraine. I've seen many of them over the last 30 years, but they were never hallmarked. Perhaps I saw one in a museum that had a hallmark of "12", which was a typical silver hallmark seen on Jewish silver in 19th century Ukraine. This piece I had to get because it's very ornate, as it is richly engraved with different animals all around the top. After I polished it I was shocked to see there is a tiny mark on the "twig / stem" part. A makers mark?! Under a 20x loupe I can clearly see "J.", and two more letters after that, "LI". I know the second letter looks like an N or U but if you look very, very closely at the first hallmark photo, you can see the L and I (it is not a T). Can anyone help me identify this presumably Russian maker who has a mark that begins with a J and then a period, and then two more letters? I'm sorry for the quality of the photos, that was the best I can do on my scanner.

after getting no responses I looked at the mark again. I was very wrong. Looking at it upside down, its now clear to me it is a worn "ET", a French guarantee mark. Move along, nothing to see here :)