Featured a nice clean up

hmmm maybe kronesølv fabrikkerne from the cataloque above were doing some kind of retail work on english manufactured flatware? but then its a bit odd that it have danish plate marks, unless of cause it was part of the retail agreement, but thats just speculations

 

Not in the area of production like you, but there is actually a good deal of Scandinavian silver found here in the U.S., and it's been a completely different experience for me - probably have a couple of hundred pieces of late 19th to mid 20th century Scandinavian silver in my collection, both solid silver and plated, and have sold even more over the years, and while I've never taken steel wool to any piece, can't recall any of those with plating wear showing anything other than nickel silver base metal. Just as a note, copper is the source of the antibacterial qualities of both brass and nickel silver, and there isn't usually much difference in the amount of copper found in those alloys - silver, also typically alloyed with copper for working, has its own antibacterial qualities, including use in colloidal form as an antibiotic.

Kronesølv-Fabrikerne offered their solid silver and silverplated wares to the public, without a middleman, they were a manufacturer, also offering special orders on request. 'English Plate' was just a marketing term, there are different classic Danish patterns like 'Dobbeltriflet' and 'Empire' on the page referenced - and the items in the catalog are of Danish manufacture. I have seen the two-tower mark on foreign-made flatware bearing an assumed retailer mark 'TB', a piece in my collection is German, not marked as such, but identifiable by pattern, the same 'TB' and two-tower mark was found on a set of American silverplate flatware, the pattern introduced in 1911.

The Empire pattern from the same 1914 catalog, offered as three-tower solid silver, or as plate on Nysølv, offering 15, 20, or 25 year warranties, depending on the quality of plating:



Below is a circa 1930 Cohr silverplate on nickel silver cigarette box (not mine, wish it was), marked with their 'ATLA' trademark, the two-towers, 'ALP' for alpacca, the 'FDG' trade association torch-mark for silverplate, and the 'Danske Arbejde' mark.





~Cheryl

 

well im not excactely a flatware schoolar, i just know what i have seen and handled, and what i have disgussed with others.
by the way, i tested the spoon and compared it to nickel silver as well, and it tested positive as silver
you think maybe nickel silver have a tendency to turn brass color? because you sound awefully sure about this nickel silver thing, but ever piece of worn 2 tower i have handled had shown a clear brass-color

 

Can't imagine that anything would make nickel silver turn to the gold-tone of brass, but it does vary in the color from a white very close in color to silver (which also varies) to a very distinct pale yellowish tone - perhaps you are only seeing the wear on pieces with a brass base, the wear on nickel silver not as obvious. I am quite sure that my experience with Danish and other Scandinavian silverplate has only shown nickel silver at worn areas, whether bearing a two-tower marks or any other, but of course, I'm in the U.S. Have given you examples of two-tower silver flatware with nickel silver bases from a period catalog and and one marked as such, as well as a marked holloware piece from a well-known and prolific Danish maker - more examples could easily be found.

I am very curious about the '1 tower' nickel silver, it's not a mark I've ever run across, read about or heard mention of - would very much like to have an image to add to my research files...

~Cheryl

 

i dont have an example at the moment of the one tower, but i will remember your request and take some pictures the next time i have some at hand its called 1 tower, but looks more like a sword or a torch sometimes, we just call it a tower because it fits well with the already established 2 towers and 3 towers most people are used to

also, a quick googleing of silver plate on my danish google does pull up many examples that states that plate (in denmark at least) is most usually on brass or copper. a few of the examples does mention both tin and nickel silver as well, but copper and brass seem to be the center metal in the danish articles regarding silver plate one article mentions that brass and copper also makes the best body for plating, im not a scientist so i dont know if thats true, but would make good sense if they plated on the ideal base

the 24th i am going to a ''junk'' auction as i call it, there should be a few of the usual boxes of plate and other metal goods as job lots, i will take some pictures of what i mean when i say that all i see is plate on brass

 

Would this be it?



~Cheryl

 

yes~ we use that on pretty much all the flatware that is nickel silver although today, we dont really manufacture nickel silver anymore, steel sorta took over~

 

although, it say its a quality mark, i have never heard that before :/ i know ATLA is supposed to be a high quality plating, but the one tower is for nickel silver i am sure of that

 

That's from a site started by a Danish silver researcher, it was dedicated to Cohr in particular and he lost his homepage a couple of years ago, said he was going to get it back up, but haven't heard anything from him lately. There was, at that time, some question as to the actual name of the organization, but as you see, the mark is found on Cohr's ATLA silverplate, as well as silverplate by other manufacturers...

~Cheryl

 

hmmm that is very confusing. all the explanations i have been able to pull out of the web, and out of people i have been talking to here in denmark, is that the tower system works like this
1 tower = fake silver, or ''new silver'' as we call nickel silver in denmark
2 towers = silver plate
3 towers = silver
that system have always been the describtion everywhere i have looked and asked

 

Apparently Henrik Olsen did get his Cohr page back up and I missed it, he's done further research and some points are clarified. Please note the reference sources at the end of the page on his site, word-of-mouth is not usually a reliable source (the internet is filled with firmly stated misinformation) - and he was careful to question his attribution of the plain torchmark on the old page, not stating it as fact until verified.



http://www.cohrsilver.dk/cohr/index.htm

~Cheryl

 

well that makes a bit more sense when you think about how 2 towers are only on very old plate maybe the torch mark are then the reason you say its usually on a white body? because i dont think i have seen any torch marked fatware where i can see the brass underneath -> because there arent any

 

I am not saying that the torchmark means anything other than 'silverplated', could be on any material, but it makes little sense to me that Denmark would be using brass and copper as their primary base for electroplated wares, especially flatware, while other European countries, as well as the U.S. and Canada, used primarily nickel silver as the base, for the very simple reason that worn plating wasn't as evident on the white metal. Brass and nickel silver are both copper-based alloys, usually with a similar percentage of copper, can't see any reason to brassplate nickel silver before plating it with silver - copperplating before the silver might be used on steel, or other metals that don't take as well to silverplating (have also seen it on silverplated resin/plastic), but there wouldn't really be any reason to do so on nickel silver and it would pretty much negate the reason for using a white metal in the first place.

Looking forward to seeing your brass-base pieces, more examples for my reference files...

~Cheryl