Need Help Identifying a Few Silver Hallmarks/Styles, Image-Heavy Sorry!

[kali_is_my_copilot]

So I've gotten a lot better at tracking down this type of information but I have a handful of items that I haven't been able to pin down.

First is a sterling and.... topaz? stag pin. I love this piece and would really like to know more about it. The closest I've been able to get for the hallmark is Lebolt & Co. out of Chicago. The style of the hallmark matches but the font of the L is different. They mostly did housewares, and what jewelry I've been able to look up from them sounds very high-end.




Next is a sterling bracelet with a neat link style.



A tree(?) pin with the most secure latch style I've ever seen:



Sterling & turquoise beaded necklace, not sure if the sunburst is a hallmark or generic accent.



Sterling-handled child's knife decorated with what I'm guessing is Peter Rabbit (it's the satchel). There is an artisan's signature after the sterling mark and I can't make it out, hope someone recognizes the chicken scratch or the style.



And last but not least one of the coolest things I've ever found. A collectible spoon from Vezelay, France, marked JM inside the bowl.

 

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[diggummup]

Right off the top of my head the rabbit spoon is a piece of Webster sterling. The others, i'll have to confer with my books.

 

[kali_is_my_copilot]

Thanks so much for the info, I really appreciate any help I can get with these. I was starting to build a mini-hoard of silver w/ no ID so I went through and knocked out a bunch of IDs on my own, which was a nice feeling since it shows how much I've learned since getting into this. I also said screw it re: a bunch of bulky generic stuff and sent it to scrap unidentified, leaving me with a small stash of items too nice to not learn more about. How'd you know the maker of the bunny knife, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[twiasp]

I believe the sun symbol on the necklace is a makers mark of some type, I have seen it on stuff before also, but never found out the maker.

 

[randazzo1]

Your pearl brooch is an awesome SCORE! That is the authentic Mikimoto "Oyster" shaped mark. Measure the diameter on the pearls and then I can give you a guess on price.

 

[2ndisbest]

The JM spoon could possibly be Johnson Matthey. They mostly make precious metals bars, but I did find some spoons on ebay.

 

[kali_is_my_copilot]

WOW you just made a decent day even better. I'm definitely pleased with the sold listing price range for similar pieces on eBay. The pearls on that brooch are 3-5 mm in size, there are nine altogether. Man I love this site & you guys are awesomely helpful.

 

[diggummup]

I was running out the door the other morning when I replied. Let me first say... You have a good eye for uncommon and quality sterling.

Next, I checked my Book on Mexican marks. I checked The Little Book of Mexican Silver Trade and Hallmarks, I checked the Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry, I checked Hallmarks of the Southwest, I checked The History and Hallmarks of Hopi Silversmithing, I checked the Book Of Old Silver, English, American, Foreign and I searched online for at least an hour and a half total.

I'm sorry to say that I got nothing for ya, lol.

I do have a comment or two though:

The rising sun or sun rays marks are commonly associated with Hopi made jewelry. But like I said I could not find that particular mark anywhere.

The stone in the stag brooch is probably a citrine, the majority of them are. I have a similar kilt feather plume with a stag head on it. I have seen a Lebolt mark with a lion rampant but it didn't look like this one and the L is usually in script.

Here is one-

The marks on it are strange. These brooches are usually British or Scottish marked but I can't make heads or tails of that (what appears to be) Lion Rampant. I remember seeing something like it before somewhere but I can't remember where. It looks like a pseudo mark of some type but I can't find anything like it. A lion rampant with stick arms, lol. I though it was a horse at first.

The spoon, I would expect some type of other (French) hallmarks on the stem itself somewhere since the building depicted on it is a Monastery in France. You've checked it really closely? The pattern is kind of busy and marks are very small sometimes, or even half worn off.

The Mexican silver I believe just says "SIL" I can't find it in the (go to) book for Mexican hallmarks. It's a nice looking Modernist style bracelet.

 

[kali_is_my_copilot]

Aw shucks dig, you really know how to make a girl feel special. Mostly I just look for things that I like, and I'm an inveterate digger so I find a lot of unmarked stuff and odd pieces that people overlook. The most I paid for any of the items mentioned in this post was $6 for the Webster knife and that was only because I was sure I could get at least double that on ebay, but I'm usually all about the <$5 scores.

Here's something I picked up at an estate today, it was in a $2 bag of random junk keychains that I found in the bottom of a laundry basket in the garage. I flipped the bag over, saw abalone with a nice silver rim and added it to my pile; didn't check it out until I was on my way home and was pretty psyched. According to the internet, the 900 mark dates this to pre-1920. The Jacopo brothers went on to found Arte de Plata and I've picked some nice pieces by them this year but this is my favorite.



Thanks again for your help, even if you did waste a ton of time trying to run these down. I agree with everything you said about the not-Lebolt mark, and I lol'd at the lion w/ stick arms. I will say that when I was originally researching this mark I found a picture of an urn made by Lebolt that had a stag's head just like this one mounted on each side (of course I can't find it now). It's sort of a moot point because I like it and I'm holding onto it for the time being, same with the bracelet; my main motivation for finding a maker is to bump up my sales profits (like that Mikimoto brooch yay!).

I saw marks similar to that sunburst online but of course they were of unknown attribution. At least you gave me a stylistic jumping off point for writing a listing. As far as the spoon goes, I looked it over again very carefully with a loupe and.... I got nothin'. In one of the pictures you can see that there's quite a bit of wear around the outside lip of the spoon, so anything that was there at one point is long gone, and no luck on the stem either, back or front. So it goes.

One more thing, at that same estate I snagged another small bag of junk for $6 that had a set of Vietnam-era USAF wings clearly marked sterling. There was another bag with similar items in it, but it was ridiculously expensive before I got paid (45-90 each). Then I got to thinking about your $2500 WW1 wings and decided to go back to the sale later today and double-check that they're nothing special, if I end up scoring huge I'll definitely be letting everyone know.

 

[diggummup]

It wasn't wasted time. Even though I didn't find any of your marks, I learn a little something every time I do a search. I can relate to being an inveterate digger. I don't go by diggummup for no reason. I've found many a good thing digging through "junk" boxes, including a keychain or two.
LOL about the wings, I wasn't even gonna mention those until RJC started his "questionable" tirade. Be careful with the wings though, some of them aren't worth much at all and some are even faked. Here's a site where you can read a little about aviation wings- Anaspides.net

BTW- Very cool keychain. You can see it's had a lot of use over the years. It's amazing the abalone is still in such good shape. I have piece from the 70's-80's that are in worse shape, abalone wise.