Egyptian or Arabic Fiddle Pattern Teaspoon - Info please

Good Day

I wonder if someone knowledgeable about Egyptian silver marks would be able to provide information on this fiddle pattern teaspoon. (I call it fiddle pattern for convenience, but it is not quite fiddle pattern since it lacks the usual shoulders near the base of the stem).

From what I know of the history of this piece it was likely purchased in Egypt during the first half of the Twentieth Century by a collector of silver and other interesting artifacts.

The mark in the centre would appear to be a Tughra. The mark on the left contains the elements that resemble a 9, plus a point. In Egyptian hallmarks this indicates 90% purity. Ie 900/1000.

My problems with the marks on this piece are:

1. The information I can find on the web regarding Egyptian hallmarks does not mention the inclusion of a Tughra, except on very old silver, and then it would have appeared on its own without other marks.
2. In Egyptian silver the punch containing the 9 is a composite mark that also includes an arabic letter ABOVE the 9 to indicate the assay office. This mark has the Arabic letter below the 9. (And I don’t know what office, if any, it denotes). I’m assuming it is an Arabic letter, I don’t read Arabic.
3. In Egyptian silver a set of hallmarks that includes the composite mark should have been accompanied by either a lotus mark or a cat mark, plus a date letter mark. It is possible that the mark in the oval punch, if viewed sideways, is a cat with a raised tail. This is one of the marks used to denote that the metal is silver, but none of the pictures of a cat with a raised tail that I have seen quite resemble this cat (if it is a cat).
4. There is no date letter in English or Arabic (see previous point).
5. This leaves me with the questions — are these marks Egyptian? If so, why do they differ from what appears to be the norm? If not, what jurisdiction are they from?
6. Am I correct in concluding that this is a 900/1000 piece?
7. What date, and assay office, do the marks indicate?

Any informed assistance would be appreciated.

Michael

 

900 silver not Egyptian Iran maybe (guessing on faint memory)

 

Egyptian marks are always in a rectilinear cartouche. If more than one they are side by side, not spread around like this & not oval. When there are 3, order L to R is fineness number/assay office, national mark (cat or lotus from 1946 on), date letter (Roman or Arabic from 1940 on)

 

Ottoman Empire (fiddle pattern does not require shoulders)...

See Turkey: https://www.925-1000.com/foreign_marks7.html

~Cheryl

 

Sorry, I'm multi-tasking - should have mentioned that as part of the Ottoman Empire, it could easily have been produced and assayed in Egypt...

~Cheryl

 

But it doesn't have the standard mark that 925-1000 says is part of the Ottoman (Turkish) marks. Of those marks it only has the Tughra.

 

Thank you for this information. I wonder if you could indicate what you regard as the best source of detailed and accurate information about Egyptian hallmarks. Most of what I find on the web is incomplete and vague.

 

Those marks are too recent for this teaspoon. A Tughra mark on Turkish, Arabic or North African silver means Ottoman period or earlier.

 

The best Internet guide to Egyptian marks is the one I wrote for eBay. Then they took all of them down & now favor influencer type things rather than informational.

A condensed guide to Egyptian hallmarks.

Egyptian fineness marks are written using the Eastern Arabic system which, unlike words, is read left to right. This keypad from Wiki serves as a crib sheet:



Zeroes are dots. Much of the time they use only one, so writing 90 for 900. Sometimes 2 dots are written one over the other, : .

Most tourist silver jewellery is 800 silver. I have seen the dot put between the legs of the 8.

(Keneh assay office)

Most tourist jewellery is marked as 12K, although have had a number of sellers tell me their clearly marked piece tests as 18K.

12K 18K

The 21K mark looks like the 12 in reverse order.

Above the fineness number is a mark for the assay office. Most stuff I see has the never perfect Cairo mark. There used to be an on line source that included the assay office marks. At some point they took down a lot of the detailed info they had. Suspect they ran afoul of the Hallmark Institute. I do not have a chart but @Any Jewelry may have it in a book?

National marks for silver are a cat before 1946; a lotus flower after. The national mark for gold is an ibis.

Date letters are Roman before 1940; Arabic after.







# Egypt Egyptian marks hallmarks

 

Your spoon is almost certainly 19th century, and again, Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire then, the marks likely varied a bit depending on origin, but they are still Ottoman...

~Cheryl

 

Don't you have a book that is quite thorough on Egyptian marks? Does it include info on time before British established this system? Lucked into something once, scouting the Internet. Probably will never find again.

 

It's completely down now.

 

I have very little info prior to 1916. When it comes to a rough date of earlier pieces, I combine the info I have from other North African countries during Ottoman rule, and the other Ottoman marks.
Ottoman North Africa was largely semi-autonomous, and had particular local marks, which I don't see on this spoon.

The oval mark is often seen on Turkish Ottoman silver, so I think the spoon could be Turkish or possibly European Ottoman, rather than Egyptian or Arab. The silver fineness in the Ottoman empire was usually ca .800 or .900.
This is the Tughra mark the right way up:

 

I think it is the Tughra of the last Turkish Sultan, Abdul Hamid II (1876-1918).

 

Again, I only know they are Ottoman marks, and since the OP seems to believe the piece came from Egypt, believe it's a possibility...


Here's an interesting post that I missed last year: https://www.antiquers.com/threads/marks-on-arabic-teaspoon-help-please.39695/


Years ago, looked at Garo Kürkman's 'Ottoman Silver Marks' (1996), but it was quite pricey and definitely not worth it for me - unfortunately, while some silver references go down in price with time, this one, like so many others, has only increased significantly. His site shows a few excerpts from the book, and this one, though low resolution and difficult to read (for me anyway), seems to indicate use of a tughra at the Egyptian assay office:



http://kurkman.com/silver.htm


This group, sold at Sotheby's in 2006, doesn't show the marks, but describes Egyptian with tughras, citing Kürkman: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-...up-of-ottoman-silver-turkey-194-c-d43aaqbjdm#


Suspect there are other examples, but I'm done looking...


~Cheryl

 

And one I forgot about.

So this spoon keeps showing up?
Silver, if for some reason you repost items, it helps if you refer to the thread you posted before. But it is better to keep it all in one thread, people don't remember, and it keeps them from wasting time.

 

Can't even put a number to posts I've made and then totally forgotten - every once in a while, they don't even look familiar when reminded. Have decided that my brain is so full of basically useless information that it's started ejecting random bits and pieces...

~Cheryl

 

Sounds familiar.