Featured Chatelaine in silver

It depends on where they were made. But there could be some marks hiding somewhere, many Continental European marks are tiny.

 

Ditto.

 

It's possible that yours is a fancy dress chatelaine, not the usual household accessory. I don't know if the utilitarian ones were worn in public. It's really a fascinating topic of social custom and material culture. I'm sure far more than one historical costume grad student has done a thesis on them.

From Wiki: " The chatelaine was also used as a woman's keychain in the 19th century to show the status of women in a household. The woman with the keys to all the many desks, chest of drawers, food hampers, pantries, storage containers, and many other locked cabinets was "the woman of the household". As such, she was the one who would direct the servants, housemaids, cooks and delivery servicemen and would open or lock the access to the valuables of the house, possessing total authority over who had access to what. Frequently, this hostess was the senior woman of the house. When a woman married and moved into her father-in-law's house, her husband's mother would usually hold on to the keys. However, if the mother became a widow, the keys and their responsibilities and status were often passed to the oldest son's wife. Younger women and daughters in the house often wanted the appearance of this responsibility, and would often wear decorative chatelaines with a variety of small objects in the place of keys, especially bright and glittering objects that could be used to start a conversation.[8] In the case of the absence of a woman of the house, the controller of the keys was often a hired housekeeper."

 

Yes they can be well hidden in the pattern, they sometimes take a bit of finding.

 

The Dutch marks are the worst. I blame @Any Jewelry

 

We just had some info on mesh purses here:

Perfume Passage Newsletter - A Tale of a Purse - Information regarding purses c.1890s to c.1940s

This one has similarities to ones I've seen IDed as Whiting & Davis. They do not seem to be marked, or not all of them are.

 

Have you ever tried to decipher French marks?
What a nightmare they are, we have a book on French hallmarks, there are thousands of them.

 

I remember reading that in the 18th C men wore chatelaines. Before zippers, pants were fastened with buttons, and a chatelaine was worn to drape over the buttons. Gentlemen were expected to jingle as they walked across a room.

 

True, all my fault.
In my defense, I am pretty small myself.