Expert: Martin G Roberts - 6/13/2008

Question
Quarter Gill,  maker Gaskell & Chambers, Birmingham. Marking on bottom inside are a teepee shaped mark with an X on top and a diamond shaped mark on the bottom.  Top outside lip has the #s 7over 57 with a coat of arms to the right, as far as I can make out.Any info would be appreciated. Y in center of Teepee Thank you.

Answer
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A mid 20th Century English Imperial capacity spirit measure.

G&C worked in Birmingham, England, from the very late 19th Century to the 1970s. The 57 is part of a capacity verification mark, and it's a date: 1957. So it will have been made in the mid 1950s.

Quarter gill is the capacity - one sixteenth of an Imperial pint. The other marks are ancillary marks used by G&C. the X being the continuation of use of what was originally a quality mark for English pewter of the 17th Century, and the Y in triangle may indicate it was cast in a mould acquired from James Yates, who was a late 19th Century Birmingham pewterer.

Martin
www.antique-metalware.co.uk