Hello
Your cutlery is plated - before Second World War cutlery normally was plated 90 gram pure silver on 24 pieces of cutlery (12 soup spoon and 12 table fork = more or less a quarter square meter of surface to be plated = 3.75 gram per unit). The "better" one were plated with 100 gram = more or less 4 gram per unit. [Now is most times usual to use 150 gram.]
VLIES was trademark of Wötzel & Co. GmbH - Factory of Cutlery - settled in Aue, province Saxony, Germany.
Aue and its near surrounding were one of the German centre for cutlery production (A. Wellner Söhne, Gowe, C.F. Hutschenreuter, Wötzel & Co., ...). Before this has happen, has start there
Dr. Geitner with production of basic material
»Argentan« = a copper-zink-nickel-alloy - and one of his first client be came
August Wellner, a cabinet maker, and his son-in-low
Hutschenreuter making spoon and other products.
SCHWERTE was trademark of
VDNS Vereinigte Deutsche Nickel-Werke, Schwerte (Ruhr), Germany. Company was first
Herbers, Witte & Co., Iserlohn.
1851 Dr.
Theodor Fleitmann - after he had studied chemistry and was promoted by
Justus von Liebig, be came director and by his inventively short time later co-owner of then
Fleitmann & Witte, Jserlohn. In
1868 they have buy a terrain in
Schwerte, where since 1867 the new
Ruhr valley railway traject was under construction. By time and while of some year premise in Iserlohn was moved totally to Schwerte. Dr. Fleitmann had in between invented some production methods for combinations with nickel or nickel alloy.
In about
1902 they've start with their own
cutlery production. After World War One they've made hollow ware and flatware products, designed by the architect Carl Hermann Josef
Schmitz.
In their Art Nouveau period as also in their Art Déco period they've made famous products. Well, in same periods they've made also products for "Everybody".
Successor of both primary materials producing company - Dr. Geitner's »Auerhammer« as also that of Dr. Fleitmann, VDNS - being now »Deutsche Nickel GmbH« - look:
http://www.deutsche-nickel.de" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
VLIES and SCHWERTE is now history!
Kind regards silverport
.