Community Sale Haul, Gold, Silver & Copper

[bigcaddy64]

I was out visiting the in-laws this past weekend and, as luck would have it, there was a decent community sale happening on Saturday morning.

Apparently people are allergic to waking up early and it started well after the posted start time. I made my rounds until I found a house having a sale, bought an oil painting and took the realtor map to locate the next house. There wasn’t much until the 4-5th house where I found the 2 lighters, earrings, wristwatch and silver pin. The watch was a gamble since I didn’t even bother to open the case.

At one of the last stops I purchased the copper plate ( It’s made by a Swiss company called Springs) and the pocket watch. I couldn’t believe there was a silver watch sitting on a table in an area known for people aggressively asking/buying precious metals.

Once home and after the plumbing repairs were complete, I looked through my finds.

The wrist watch was 14k Waltham and weighs 3.9 grams w/o the movement.

The pocket watch is a demi hunter case made of 935 silver with Swiss hallmarks. The movement is marked “Watchmakers to the Admiralty, L. Smith and Sons, 9 Strand” The chain has a small loop with an 800 hallmark so I believe that’s silver too.

one lighter is a cheesy Swank but the built in watch had me sold. The other is a fairly rough S. T. DuPont that I’ll possibly read and keep in my collection of mens smoking accessories. I have a decent collection of Dunhill but not much DuPont.

 

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[Blackfoot58]

Were they priced anywhere close to their values? Some sellers are clueless, others a little more on the shrewd side.

 

[Red-Coat]

The pocket watch is a demi hunter case made of 935 silver with Swiss hallmarks. The movement is marked “Watchmakers to the Admiralty, L. Smith and Sons, 9 Strand”

Some great scores you made there.

Sorry for the long-winded reply, but I think there’s some useful learning to be had from the pocket watch marks. I would be pretty sure that the movement is marked “S. Smith & Son”, not “L. Smith & Sons”. Smith’s marks are often written in fancy script and, for example, the seller of this one attributed it as ‘L. Smith’ arising from the first ‘S’ being misread as ‘L’. The word ‘Son’ is also not plural and the ending is either just a fancy embellishment or perhaps a letter ‘l’ as an abbreviation for “limited”.

So, I would think the watch is from Samuel Smith, established as a jeweller and watchmaker in 1851 at 12 Newington Causeway, and then at 149/151 Newington Causeway in London. The business relocated to 85 Strand during 1872. Smith was joined by his son (Samuel junior) who took over the business when his father died in 1875. Samuel junior later had other premises at 9 Strand, Trafalgar Square, and 68 Piccadilly. In 1899 the business became a private limited company as “S. Smith & Son Ltd.” Samuel junior's youngest son, Sir Allan Gordon-Smith, joined him as Manager at 9 Strand in 1903.

Smith & Son mainly used London-made movements, although they did import some higher-end precision movements from Switzerland. The cases were almost all Swiss imports. Your case, in addition to the Swiss hallmarks, also has British hallmarks.

In 1887, Britain introduced new requirements for imported gold and silver watch cases via the “British Merchandise Act”. From 1st January 1888 imported cases had to be hallmarked in a British Assay Office, or in their country of origin, or carry no hallmarks at all (and therefore couldn’t be sold as “silver”). Neither of the existing Swiss silver standards (.800 or .875) met the Sterling standard and so the import of Swiss silver cases was effectively going to be prohibited by default.

At a meeting of the Swiss Federal Council on 24 December 1887, it was decreed that an additional new standard be introduced to allow compliance with British law. The new standard was “0,935 Sterling” and .935 was chosen rather than .925 as a result of differences in understanding about what tolerances applied to assay analysis in Britain versus Switzerland. To confirm that a watch case had assayed at .935 a distinguishing hallmark was needed and the Swiss decided on three bears, each within a shield… one small bear above two large ones. That’s your mark and there is also a Swiss trademark that I don’t recognise (strange device with a feathered arrow on top). Prior to 1925 those kinds of mark are not well documented.

Further legislative changes meant that from 1st June 1907 all imported Swiss silver watch cases had to be assayed and hallmarked in a British assay office and so the three bears mark is generally not seen after that date unless a British hallmark is also present. British hallmarks applied to imports were intentionally different in style to distinguish them from domestically-made items. The city mark for London from 1st June 1907 was the zodiac symbol for the constellation Leo (instead of a leopard head), accompanied by ‘925’ in an oval (instead of the usual lion passant mark for sterling). Note that both your case and the example I’ve shown alongside it below have the city mark accidentally punched upside down, which is a commonly-seen error.

So, the Swiss assayed this at .935 silver to ensure it would meet the British tolerances applied to Sterling silver and the London assay office affirmed that it met the minimum standard but marked it at .925 (because Britain doesn’t recognise .935 as a standard). Then in 1933, Switzerland introduced a .925 standard fully aligned to Sterling and accompanied by a duck hallmark.

Below those marks is the date letter, which seems to be a lower-case ‘m’, and so could be for 1907 or 1927. It’s not completely clear, but I think it’s a gothic font, which would be 1927. At the far left, yours also has the Samuel Smith mark (acting as sponsor rather than maker) as ‘SS without stops’ in a rectangle with chamfered corners. They first registered that mark in June 1898.

 

[bigcaddy64]

Were they priced anywhere close to their values? Some sellers are clueless, others a little more on the shrewd side.

I paid about 23 bucks between both stops for everything pictured. I wasn’t going to complain or haggle.

 

[bigcaddy64]

Some great scores you made there.

Sorry for the long-winded reply, but I think there’s some useful learning to be had from the pocket watch marks. I would be pretty sure that the movement is marked “S. Smith & Son”, not “L. Smith & Sons”. Smith’s marks are often written in fancy script and, for example, the seller of this one attributed it as ‘L. Smith’ arising from the first ‘S’ being misread as ‘L’. The word ‘Son’ is also not plural and the ending is either just a fancy embellishment or perhaps a letter ‘l’ as an abbreviation for “limited”.

View attachment 2104832

So, I would think the watch is from Samuel Smith, established as a jeweller and watchmaker in 1851 at 12 Newington Causeway, and then at 149/151 Newington Causeway in London. The business relocated to 85 Strand during 1872. Smith was joined by his son (Samuel junior) who took over the business when his father died in 1875. Samuel junior later had other premises at 9 Strand, Trafalgar Square, and 68 Piccadilly. In 1899 the business became a private limited company as “S. Smith & Son Ltd.” Samuel junior's youngest son, Sir Allan Gordon-Smith, joined him as Manager at 9 Strand in 1903.

View attachment 2104833

Smith & Son mainly used London-made movements, although they did import some higher-end precision movements from Switzerland. The cases were almost all Swiss imports. Your case, in addition to the Swiss hallmarks, also has British hallmarks.

In 1887, Britain introduced new requirements for imported gold and silver watch cases via the “British Merchandise Act”. From 1st January 1888 imported cases had to be hallmarked in a British Assay Office, or in their country of origin, or carry no hallmarks at all (and therefore couldn’t be sold as “silver”). Neither of the existing Swiss silver standards (.800 or .875) met the Sterling standard and so the import of Swiss silver cases was effectively going to be prohibited by default.

At a meeting of the Swiss Federal Council on 24 December 1887, it was decreed that an additional new standard be introduced to allow compliance with British law. The new standard was “0,935 Sterling” and .935 was chosen rather than .925 as a result differences in understanding about what tolerances applied to assay analysis in Britain versus Switzerland. To confirm that a watch case had assayed at .935 a distinguishing hallmark was needed and the Swiss decided on three bears, each within a shield… one small bear above two large ones. That’s your mark and there is also a Swiss trademark that I don’t recognise (strange device with a feathered arrow on top). Prior to 1925 those kinds of mark are not well documented.

Further legislative changes meant that from 1st June 1907 all imported Swiss silver watch cases had to be assayed and hallmarked in a British assay office and so the three bears mark is generally not seen after that date unless a British hallmark is also present. British hallmarks applied to imports were intentionally different in style to distinguish them from domestically-made items. The city mark for London from 1st June 1907 was the zodiac symbol for the constellation Leo (instead of a leopard head), accompanied by ‘925’ in an oval (instead of the usual lion passant mark for sterling). Note that both your case and the example I’ve shown alongside it below have the city mark accidentally punched upside down, which is a commonly-seen error.

View attachment 2104834 View attachment 2104835 View attachment 2104836

So, the Swiss assayed this at .935 silver to ensure it would meet the British tolerances applied to Sterling silver and the London assay office affirmed that it met the minimum standard but marked it at .925 (because Britain doesn’t recognise .935 as a standard). Then in 1933, Switzerland introduced a .925 standard fully aligned to Sterling and accompanied by a duck hallmark.

Below those marks is the date letter, which seems to be a lower-case ‘m’, and so could be for 1907 or 1927. It’s not completely clear, but I think it’s a gothic font, which would be 1927. At the far left, yours also has the Samuel Smith mark (acting as sponsor rather than maker) as ‘SS without stops’ in a rectangle with chamfered corners. They first registered that mark in June 1898.

You are correct about the name and it was a subconscious typo. Originally I read it as L but later found out that it was S. Smith. When typing out the paragraph, I used that L again without noticing.

It does sport the 3 bears (2 large & 1 small) confirming the metal purity content of 935.

The one mark that didn’t produce results is the dome with weathervane arrow at the top. Is that a Smith hallmark or something else from government mandates?

 

[Red-Coat]

The one mark that didn’t produce results is the dome with weathervane arrow at the top. Is that a Smith hallmark or something else from government mandates?

No, the complete hallmark set for Smith (as a sponsor) applied by the London assay office includes their mark as 'SS'. The dome/weathervane (if that's what it represents) is part of the original marks applied in Switzerland. I'm sure it's a trademark for the company that made the case (a maker mark of a kind) for which there are many from that period that remain unidentified. As I said, trademarks on Swiss cases made before 1925 are poorly documented and even a 1927 case would be in that territory of uncertainty.