130 Years Old and a Hallmark Mystery
Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2023 11:17 pm
I recently purchased this 3" long English fruit knife with mother of pearl handles. It was made by James Fenton of Birmingham, who began as a silversmith in the 1850s. He made many different silver objects but was most famous for his silver sewing thimbles, which you can find quite frequently on eBay. The handles were carved with protrusions called "cobbles" (said to resemble cobblestones), which are rare on knives.
The knife has brass liners, pinched bolsters, and the silver shield is inscribed "NANCE"... presumably the original owner. What looks like file work on the back spring is actually a tooled silver sleeve that fit's over the spring. There are four hallmarks: Crown (for Sheffield), Lion (sterling silver), letter "a" (1893) and JF (maker's mark).
While the knife was made in Birmingham, the crown hallmark indicates Sheffield (Birmingham's mark is an anchor)... why? I've read that some silversmith's shouldered the extra expense of sending some items to Sheffield to be hallmarked because the Sheffield mark was more prestigious, and presumably they could ask more for the object. Remember, the city hallmark is a designation of where the knife was tested for silver purity and not the place of manufacture, so strictly speaking they were not misrepresenting the knife by sending it to another location for hallmarking. That said, most buyers of the time probably thought they were buying a Sheffield-made knife.
I'm a believer in posting knife prices to add to our database and so folks can make their own value judgments. I paid $48 for this one, which included shipping from France. Because silver is relatively soft, fruit knives are delicate so they aren't very practical nowadays (not exactly an EDC knife), but I'm a sucker for old and interesting knives.
Dennis
The knife has brass liners, pinched bolsters, and the silver shield is inscribed "NANCE"... presumably the original owner. What looks like file work on the back spring is actually a tooled silver sleeve that fit's over the spring. There are four hallmarks: Crown (for Sheffield), Lion (sterling silver), letter "a" (1893) and JF (maker's mark).
While the knife was made in Birmingham, the crown hallmark indicates Sheffield (Birmingham's mark is an anchor)... why? I've read that some silversmith's shouldered the extra expense of sending some items to Sheffield to be hallmarked because the Sheffield mark was more prestigious, and presumably they could ask more for the object. Remember, the city hallmark is a designation of where the knife was tested for silver purity and not the place of manufacture, so strictly speaking they were not misrepresenting the knife by sending it to another location for hallmarking. That said, most buyers of the time probably thought they were buying a Sheffield-made knife.
I'm a believer in posting knife prices to add to our database and so folks can make their own value judgments. I paid $48 for this one, which included shipping from France. Because silver is relatively soft, fruit knives are delicate so they aren't very practical nowadays (not exactly an EDC knife), but I'm a sucker for old and interesting knives.
Dennis
