British silver army belt and pouch

[erlikhan]

Hi. I 've come along this belt in Istanbul. All of the pieces are silver hallmarked. I request a definition and a value assistance please (you can send PM for that)..

tanks a lot in advance.

[Fernando K]

hello

I can only help you with quality metal, which is .925 (sterling), the city is Birmingham and lowercase K is the year 1808, the Z lowercase is 1823.

Fernando K

[Ken Maddock]

Hi
No idea of value but just a bit of information
The crown on the box is for queen Victoria, reigned from 1837 ( the gold coloured cypher says VR)

Fernando has identified year as 1823 which would be William iv on the arrow part

And the badge with more rounded top crown looks to have GR with a v in the middle, he was reigning from 1910 to 1936, maybe my mistake in what I see though but it does look like this

Just checked kings own Norfolk yeomanry only formed in 1901 so it is GR V

So it looks as if there is a lot of chopping and changing going on
Looks nice overall but maybe it is a parts made piece, that I do not know
Regards
Ken

[Shakethetrees]

The hallmark on the vent pick holder is for London, and is 20th century. I will have to get to my library to give you the correct date.

[Ken Maddock]

Hi shakethetrees
Which component part is the vent picker
The arrow like objects?
Thanks
Ken
.

[Andreas]

It seems to be the shoulder belt and pouch of an officer of the Norfolk Yeomanry (The King's Own Royal Regiment). Their 1/1st Battalion fought at Gallipoli in 1915, which is probably how the belt found its way to Istanbul. This is consistent with the presence of George V’s cypher. The pouch is older, as the lid bears, as noted by Ken, the royal cypher of Queen Victoria. Maybe a family heirloom, the Norfolk Yeomanry was disbanded during her reign in 1849 and was raised again in 1901 by King Edward VII.
Ken, yes the vent picks (known as “prickers”) are the dart shaped objects.
Regards,
Andreas

[Fernando K]

hello

Two issues. Indeed, for the first hallmark city is London, and then the lowercase letter corresponds to 1825.
The figure is not crowned GR but VR; confusion comes from considering the bottom of the V as a fifth Romano

Ask the punches (pickers) do not correspond to an officer of artillery?

Fernando K

[thinreadline]

The crossbelt has a Kings Crown cypher and refers to George V as has been observed above , and the pouch itself is has a Queen Victoria cypher . The hallmarks cannot therefore be as early as has been stated . The original purpose of the arrow shaped prickers was to jam into the vents of enemy guns in order to 'spike' them ie render them useless for the duration of the battle. They were originally carried by officers of Light Cavalry regiments for this purpose and the later silver versions were a symbolic reference to this once vital function.

[thinreadline]

Originally Posted by thinreadline

The crossbelt has a Kings Crown cypher and refers to George V as has been observed above , and the pouch itself is has a Queen Victoria cypher . The hallmarks cannot therefore be as early as has been stated . The original purpose of the arrow shaped prickers was to jam into the vents of enemy guns in order to 'spike' them ie render them useless for the duration of the battle. They were originally carried by officers of Light Cavalry regiments for this purpose and the later silver versions were a symbolic reference to this once vital function.

The leopard face hallmark indicates London and the k is for 1905 .

[Ken Maddock]

Just a taught
Is having a hallmark on the front of a silver item not a bit unusual
Regards
Ken

[Shakethetrees]

Originally Posted by Ken Maddock

Just a taught
Is having a hallmark on the front of a silver item not a bit unusual
Regards
Ken

Not at all. The idea of hiding or obscuring these marks is counter to their purpose, which is to show that it is indeed made of sterling silver by a certain maker and was tested by an independent authority in a particular town in a particular year.

When a silversmith or jeweler submits a piece (required by law) for hall marking, if it somehow fails to meet stringent testing (I will have to find the exact standards, if anyone is interested), the piece will be returned to whoever submitted it, smashed beyond recovery.

This system was imposed way back in the 1100's or thereabout to maintain the quality of England's coinage, as coins were melted and fashioned into finished goods which were eventually melted and turned back into coins. Silver solder is a little bit less pure than sterling, so the incorporation of it, bit by bit, into coinage adulterated the end product.

The marking system was seen as a consumer protection issue, the marks, in a sense, creating a "paper trail" tracking each work back to its maker. If a maker somehow obtains spurious marking stamps and turns out substandard goods, he will be prosecuted for fraud. This is something they take seriously, to this day.

So, if the buyer can't clearly see the marks, his confidence in the quality of the work is gone.

[Ken Maddock]

I hear what you are saying about making the marks visible,
Just thinking about sports medals, cutlery, plates and jugs etc. most in my limited experience have hallmark on the reverse.
just a taught nothing more
regards
Ken

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Ken Maddock

I hear what you are saying about making the marks visible,
Just thinking about sports medals, cutlery, plates and jugs etc. most in my limited experience have hallmark on the reverse.
just a taught nothing more
regards
Ken

I understand your point, Ken.
In fact the stamping of a hallmark on the front face of an object such as this one may ensure its value but it sure looks bizarre and unaesthetic, somehow disfiguring the piece.
Probably meanwhile other criteria also applies, both in Britain as surely in other countries. In Portugal, for one, fine metal objects are always stamped in discreet places; there are even punches of different sizes for pieces of both little and large dimensions. I also have a little British jug with the hallmarks in the bottom; a Russian sugar tweezer with the marks in the interior of one of the handles, a Dane spoon marked in its arm back and an Egiptian brooch with the tiny mark in the fixing pin.
I take it that, when the consumer buys a gold or a silver object, he has a chance to be shown its hallmark by the seller. Once he is confident that the mark is in it, there is no need to show it off to others by having it stamped in the middle of its face.