Swiss or German? Handarbeit brooch

Post by **admin** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 3:28 pm

Members,
Just came across this hand made silver brooch with an interesting maker's mark. Can anyone identify the maker.
Thanks, Tom
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rachelw · Post by **rachelw** » Thu May 01, 2008 5:04 am

handarbeit - that's usually German, isn't it? don't know the makers mark though

jcm · Post by **jcm** » Fri May 02, 2008 6:35 pm

Hi Tom
Handarbeit is german for handmade
is a letter inside the mark ?
if so I can probably help.

Post by **admin** » Fri May 02, 2008 7:00 pm

Hi,
Thanks for your input.
There is no letter inside the mark, and yes, handarbeit is German and it may well be from Germany. However, the piece may also be Austrian without governmental marks, or from Switzerland, where they commonly use 0.800 rather than 800 as the standard mark. Unless someone specifically knows the maker, we'll never know for sure.

Thanks, Tom

jcm · Post by **jcm** » Fri May 02, 2008 9:07 pm

Upon some searching in some books and web.I did find mention that handarbeit was also the name of a silver company in germany.However they could be mistaken I think.No mention in any books

kerangoumar · Post by **kerangoumar** » Fri May 02, 2008 9:33 pm

be careful when you search on the net; use "handarbeit co." rather than omitting the quotes. when you do that you find that there is no company by that name.

what you do find, when quotes are omitted, is that the first and the second words occur somewhere on the page but not necessarily together; you might get 20 or 30 references, all spurious. handarbeit means hand work.