About Michelle Lieberman Expertise My expertise is in the area of American sterling silver and coin silver flatware and holloware, including identifying silversmiths and makers, types and patterns of flatware and their usage. I am unable to answer questions pertaining to silverplate or foreign silver.
Experience With over 25 years experience in selling vintage silver, I now devote much of my time educating others in this field.
Education/Credentials BA California State University Los Angeles
Question How important is it with vintage flatware that all the hallmarks be the same? I have a 12 piece set with varying hallmarks, which seems to indicate that different pieces were acquired at different times. If the hallmarks are accurate, all pieces are vintage. Also, is a blurred or incomplete hallmark an indication of a forgery, or just a second? Thanks for your help.
Answer Hello Sal. I'm curious as to what age flatware we're talking about here.
For silver dating up to the mid-19th century, this is normal. Most people didn't go out and order whole sets of silver, they bought a few pieces. As their wealth increased, they added to what they had. Families moved, silversmiths moved or died, so as time went on and the size of the set increased, the likelihood of it being made by different people increased as well.
Once things started moving away from individual craftsmanship into mass production manufacturing, things change. Now a person could walk into a jeweler and order what they wanted from a catalog in a specific pattern by a specific manufacturer. Place pieces were usually offered by the half or full dozen. People bought more, full sets were given as wedding gifts, and the rest is history.
As for affecting the value of your set by having different makers, again, that's going to depend on what time frame we're talking about. With hand crafted silver, who made it usually drives the value. To offer an example, a single coin silver spoon made by a run-of-the-mill silversmith may be worth $10; a seemingly identical spoon made by Paul Revere may go for $10,000. With manufactured flatware, it's primarily the maker and pattern that drive the price, so the value of a set with a mix of marks isn't greatly affected.
Now as for blurred or incomplete marks, that also depends on age. For handwrought flatware, it's not unusual for a mark to be obliterated over time. If the original mark was a shallow one, after years of polishing it can become unreadable - certainly not a forgery or a second, just a matter of time taking its toll. With manufactured flatware, this doesn't happen as much. Since machines press out the patterns and marks, the marks from piece to piece should be uniform. Again, decades of polishing will wear things down, but since this is a set you have I would think the wear should be fairly uniform from piece to piece.
