Russian (?) bronze candlestick

Hi and Happy New Year! I have this bronze candlestick (h: 15 cm) with a cyrillic mark. I tried to read it but could not make much out of it. Could you help me? And is it indeed Russian and how old? Thank you!

Mat

 

@Figtree knows a fair amount about Russian language. Maybe she can help.

 

That didn't turn out as a tag. So... @Figtree3 , @Aznathalie .

 

Thanks for re-posting, AJ. Not sure how that happened

 

Some kind of forum glitch I think, not your fault. It happens to me too sometimes, and I have to re-write it to make it show as a tag.

I am actually in lurking mode btw, need a rest, but decided to come out for you and Mat. Back to lurking.

 

If it's Russian, it would be pre-Soviet, I think, due to the presence of the last character at the end. It is not a letter, but is instead a stress mark and the use of those marks was minimized in the alphabet reform of 1919 (I might be wrong on the exact year of the reform).

Not sure if this is correct, but here goes my theory:
The four letters prior to the final character are transliterated as SORT. The word in Russian can mean "sort," "quality," "kind," or "grade." If the character to the left before those letters is supposed to be the number one, it could mean "first quality" or "first-rate," or something like that?

@Aznathalie is a native Russian speaker, I think. And we have a few others here. Their interpretations are likely to be better than mine.

 

@Figtree3
Everything is correct. Russia. Before 1918.
On October 10, 1918, a large-scale reform of Russian spelling came into force: letters were thrown out of the alphabet, including the unpronounceable "ѣ"

 

Thank you! I didn't know that was considered to be a letter. I still enjoy learning about Russian, although it has been a long time since I studied it.

 

Thank you very much @Figtree3 and @Aznathalie ! That makes sense.

 

I liked ,You very good explain everything.

 

Thank you, @Iouri .