![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
There's something wrong with me
Oct. 24th, 2012 06:36 pmPhotography is so much faster than writing descriptions, wow. I'm tearing through the shelves, only slowing down a bit when I hit a box full of small/thin things like records or flatware. While I'd really like to have a more permanent job with more responsibility, I have to say that this is much more pleasant and intellectually stirring than retail.
The trouble is that the mystery silvermarks are proving really impossible to track down. I'm going crazy because I know I've seen this one before - "SHEFFIELD / [star] [lion] [heart] [lion]" - and I know it's a replacement cipher for the date, but I can't remember basically how to find this out. The internet is not being helpful and I don't have any books. It's not Sheffield as in the town, it's a technique that many makers used. And so on. And I'm just not able to let it go and work on something else, it's always there in the back of my mind. Like right now, while I watch Episodes, I'm just going through all the patterns I can find for all makers because I have a set of demitasse spoons patented 1890 with no maker's mark so. AAAAH. I think I need someone to give me a big handful of silverware so I can at least have some different ones to obsess over. Please, please, if you have any antique silverware send me photos. PLEASE.
Still, one thing I can say for this obsession is that it's given me a pretty good idea of general silverware design trends and dating without being able to put the specific pattern name and maker to it. So there's that.
The trouble is that the mystery silvermarks are proving really impossible to track down. I'm going crazy because I know I've seen this one before - "SHEFFIELD / [star] [lion] [heart] [lion]" - and I know it's a replacement cipher for the date, but I can't remember basically how to find this out. The internet is not being helpful and I don't have any books. It's not Sheffield as in the town, it's a technique that many makers used. And so on. And I'm just not able to let it go and work on something else, it's always there in the back of my mind. Like right now, while I watch Episodes, I'm just going through all the patterns I can find for all makers because I have a set of demitasse spoons patented 1890 with no maker's mark so. AAAAH. I think I need someone to give me a big handful of silverware so I can at least have some different ones to obsess over. Please, please, if you have any antique silverware send me photos. PLEASE.
Still, one thing I can say for this obsession is that it's given me a pretty good idea of general silverware design trends and dating without being able to put the specific pattern name and maker to it. So there's that.
