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I believe @sabre123 posted font, nailed it...FIR
(sorry for the sloppy trace. Difficult with an Ipad.

 

here are more pictures. It measures 6inches by 3.5 inches tall. I believe it is an inkwell?

 

Wow that is so very helpful!!!!

 

Well, that doesn't look like " c o x " to me. More like the letters O O X, although that is not something I've seen before on a Gorham item, so I can't tell you what it means (if anything.) Gorham did use "Date letters" to represent the year a hollowware item was made. And one of the early ones was the letter O, but it would have appeared by itself.

 

Whoops

! Thank you for your help!!

I have posted more pics with all the marks

if you turn the picture on its side you can see why I thought it said c o x. The fist letter is not fully connected

 

No other marks? By the style of the Gorham trademark, it would date after 1898 when the company made considerable changes in their marks - it's a great piece and I'm not surprised by the vertically set letters, the 'COX' would indicate either a sample or a special order...

~Cheryl

 

Man this is so exciting!!!! You are such a wealth of information.

 

It might be in the Gorham archives at the Brown University library - Sam Hough, who spent years organizing the salvaged archives, used to search them for a small fee, but unfortunately he passed a couple of years ago. The archives are massive, and most not really available for several years, even if one were able to visit and do the research. https://libguides.brown.edu/c.php?g=293919 If I were to guess, could have been that the addition of the silver mount on the base was the reason for the special code, perhaps as protection from edge chips - but that's just a thought...

~Cheryl

 

I'd love to know how they attribute the glass to S&W. Not impossible that the OPs is S&W, given we Brits imported glass and put silver mounts on it.

That Gorham mark does fool people.

 

Didn't see a problem with the Stevens & Williams attribution, but you'd know the glass better than I - do you think it's not S&W? Could just be a case of info from a sales description spreading online, but importing English glass wouldn't have been unlikely at all, Gorham was a huge concern at the time, their design department led by Englishman Wm. C. Codman. They even opened a London storefront, and registered their mark in 1904, opening a Birmingham workshop in 1909 (I've a pair of B'ham-made Gorham napkin rings from that year).

Here's the catalog from that first crazy-high auction result, with several other examples of Stevens & Williams glass (pages 34, 36, 37, 38):

https://issuu.com/dumouchelles/docs/dumouchelleartgallery201409septembe/38

Boy, it sure does - just ran across a dozen or so Gorham spoons from the same U.S. seller, including a couple of American souvenir spoons, misidentified as Birmingham. Suspect the second auctioned inkwell is not "Birmingham", as described, the only marks shown belong to 1890s American firm Bachrach & Freedman, retailers as well as manufacturers, with storefronts in New York, Chicago and San Francisco - there does appear to obscured marks under the hinge (same place as the OP's piece)...

https://www.lelandlittle.com/items/129547/stevens-williams-cut-glass-inkwell/


~Cheryl

 

Identifying Stourbridge glass can be an absolute mare. I've two superb books on it written by Charles Hajdamach who knows more about British glass than anyone on the planet, I reckon. It's more that I'm wondering what characteristics they used to do such a definite attribution, if that makes sense. Might have a hunt through the books....

 

Makes perfect sense to me, misinformation spreads so easily online, I often question firm attributions - some are clearly unlikely or just wrong, but sometimes it's more that a reliable reference citation would be reassuring...

~Cheryl

 

Absolutely agree. And glass is deeply tricksy. I collect Whitefriars, so using online catalogues and such is very useful. I also have reference pieces, to compare the galss colours and feel. Same with Mdina.

 

When confronted with good quality antiques........this does tend to happen !!!

Enjoy , the ride !!