payload77
Sr. Member
Hey guys, looking for any info on the maker's mark and time stamp. Sorry it's a little blurry. Thanks for the help!
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This is not a Swedish gold hallmark, but is often misidentified as such (my opinion). The Swedish three crowns mark should be in a trefoil cartouche, such that it resembles a cat's paw (and is colloquially nicknamed as such).
I'm pretty sure the ring is by Ostby & Barton (founded 1879 in Providence, Rhode Island). Ostby chose the three crowns trademark in memory of his Scandinavian heritage (he was Norwegian, but Sweden and Norway were a personal union of two kingdoms until peaceful separation in 1905). Ostby went down with the Titanic in 1912 but the company continued production until the 1950s. The later pieces have the initials 'OB' in a cartouche alongside the crowns but it seems that the earlier pieces often did not. That may not be a hard and fast rule. I would also be pretty sure that this is not solid gold, but gold fill with a 14K shell (and likely before the US Silver & Gold Stamping Act of 1906).
If it was Ostby Barton, what's the year per timestamp?
Its an "E"I can't read what there might be within that final diamond-shaped lozenge. Can you? Or provide a better picture? Nevertheless it won't be a date mark. O&B didn't use them on gold fill rings. A number of these rings have turned up with the letter 'F' in the lozenge, with a suggestion that this perhaps just stands for 'Filled'. My personal feeling, as I already said, is that the absence of any 'OB' initials puts it in the early part of their history and that the potentially misleading nature of the '14' mark on a plated item likely puts it before the tightening up of gold marking from the Act of 1906. So, my guess would be sometime between 1879-1906