Featured Imperial Russian Niello Silver Cigarillo Case (Moscow, 1873).

Picked this up at my local market. If I've read the marks correctly, it breaks down as follows:

Made by Fyodor Ivanov, in 1873, and assayed in Moscow by assay-master Veniamin Vasilyevich Savinsky.

Zolotnik mark [84], for 87.5% silver purity.



This is my second piece of Imperial Russian silver, but only my first-ever piece of niello silver

 

Beautiful, Shangas.
I love niello. I have some antique Russian niello pieces, but all jewellery, nothing big like this.

Not too sure about Fyodor Ivanov though. Maybe @DragonflyWink knows the maker's mark.

 

It may not be 100% correct. The mark isn't very clear. It was the closest match I could find.

 

Why are you calling this Imperial? Maybe Tsarist.

 

How about, "Royal as all Get Out?"

 

I've always wondered about that, but Imperial is a much used term. Imperial versus Soviet, I guess.
I always get associations of the Imperial court when I see it.

 

Crowns, jewels, furs, white gowns...

 

Fabergé eggs....
Fabergé cigarillo cases....

 

It sounded better than "old dusty Russian silver thing".

 

Hi Shangas, The case has such a "warm" feeling about it, like you just have to pick it up. It's just gorgeous.

 

It's very tactile. It feels almost like leather on the outside when you run your finger over it.

 

I wonder why they use "84" to signify 87.5 purity?

 

Russian silver was graded by a system called zolotnik.

Zolotnik was an old Russian coin. When it was taken out of circulation, they recycled the name as a silver standard.

So like in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Austria, etc, they had the Loth system (16 loth was the highest, then was 14, 12, 11, 10, etc. I think 10 was the lowest). 14 loth was about 83% purity.

The same thing happened in Russia.

It'd be like taking the dollar and saying "this isn't money anymore, it's going to be how we grade silver-purity. $100 will be 95%, $50 will be 80%, $20 will be 70%", etc.

 

Zolotnik is different from Loth. 84 zolotniki is 14 Loth.
The Netherlands never had the Loth system. They had the the millessimal system. There was the penning and grein system for a few years, after that they went back to the millessimal system.
I suspect it was the something similar for Denmark, which is not a German-speaking country either.

 

I know it is. I never said they were the same, I was using them as a comparison.

 

You said they had the loth system, just like the Netherlands etc.
Maybe you know they didn't, but saying they did leads to confusion. Many people use this forum to identify items.

So just so it is clear to anyone else who stumbles across this thread, neither Russia nor the Netherlands used the loth system.
Denmark did use the loth system for some time until the 1880s, as did the Austro-Hungarian empire. And Germany, of course.

 

Calling this Imperial leads to confusion.

 

You may add Switzerland to the countries that used the lothige system, and along with Denmark, Norway and Sweden also measured silver fineness in lødigt/lödig.

Personally, 'Imperial Russian' for a common object not associated with the court or at least a court jeweler seems inappropriate to me too, but, as already suggested, it's become common for what might be more correctly called Imperial Era or Period.

Regarding the mark, can look through my references when time allows, but don't hold your breath...

~Cheryl

 

Well that's what I'm calling it.

 

I've read that the term zolotnik was an ancient coin, the value in grams for the zoltnik used as a quantity is 4.2658 grams.
So long as I know used for silver or goldsmithing, it is the ancient russian unit of mesure(a word from gold, zoloto), and it's a weight for 1/96 carat, then it's calculated as a 96th part of the total mass, 84 zolotniki gives 875/1000, it interess me if the coin signification can be explained.
This cheroot case is made in the manner of G. Klingert who use very often this pattern in cigarette or cheroot cases.