Thread: What is this mark?

Originally Posted by WW243

Kershaw knives - Classic Pocketknives
For generations, the Consigli family has been leveraging its passion and expertise to produce high-quality traditional Tuscan pocketknives and cutlery, using the same forging techniques that the master knifemakers of Scarperia have been refining since the 14th century.

Wow - that Consigli mark - a stylized comet - is very, very close - well spotted! If only it had a curved tail you would have nailed it:



Regards,
Neil

Shucks, weren't nuthin, got this puter thing and just used the google to axe 'what the hell is that symbol?'

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Wow - that Consigli mark - a stylized comet - is very, very close - well spotted! If only it had a curved tail you would have nailed it:



Regards,
Neil

Peake, in Birmingham, UK, in 1807 used a "Spur" as their symbol,,,,

Rarity4u - Old Sheffield Plate Maker Marks

Originally Posted by Hirlau

Peake, in Birmingham, UK, in 1807 used a "Spur" as their symbol,,,,

Rarity4u - Old Sheffield Plate Maker Marks

Good catch!


But those snooty silver smith types had marks that were pretty much exclusive to their trade.

Maybe he got tired of banging out forks & went to straights,,,,,,,

Originally Posted by Hirlau

Maybe he got tired of banging out forks & went to straights,,,,,,,

Fork banging?

Excellent John! A proper spur mark!

However, as Wullie says, those guys stuck pretty much to their own trades. Peake - or Meredith H. Peake to give his full name in all its glory, wasn't just any sort of plater, oh no! Platers then specialised - there were common platers, platers on steel, silver platers, electro-platers (after Faradays experiments), fancy-platers, platers in general, etc.

The early method involved sandwiching a block of silver on a block of copper and heating to fuse them, and then rolling them under pressure making a thin silver-clad sheet of metal. The process was invented by Thomas Boulsover in (of the Cutlers Company, 1743) and fell out of favour around 1840 when electro-plating took over.

Meredith Peake was what they called a 'close plater' - an ancient practice, highly skilled, that is now all but lost to us. This involved making sheets from german silver (silver coloured, but no silver content) and silver or nickel and cutting it around complex shapes. German silver and nickel silver were used because of the resemblence to the colour of silver and found great use in automobile and carriage lights (all chrome-plate, now). In fact, when the Indian Motorcycle company opened its Springfield plant, the only skilled labourer they got from Britain was a close-plater.

So, unfortunately, it is highly unlikely Peake had anything to do with the OPs blade - but: you never know!

Regards,
Neil