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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;gimbler-dave, post: 295707, member: 313&quot;]Hello Moeller - do you remember any of the title? Or approximately when you saw it? We have some 3rd party software that can search the last year on eBay.&nbsp; If older, I can still find it via search engine if you have keywords, although won&#039;t be able to access the content of the listing. Any lead is appreciated.</p><p><br /></p><p>The reasons I want a comparable are not so much how to price these.&nbsp; Rather, I would like to see how they are described in general, how the silver content is represented, to see what the other 6 designs are, and maybe find a picture of the hallmark on a match to the 2 designs we have. From what I can see about British hallmarks in general, the hallmark is not manufactured into the product. Instead, it is individually applied at the time of assay, and piece to piece variance of the hallmark (strike, location, etc) would be expected (can any of the silver experts confirm that? Is that still true today, with modern manufacturing?) So viewing the hallmark on a matching piece would show if it was a manufactured element (if it matched, including the hallmark defects that we see on both of our pieces - i.e. the filled in rose, partial fill on the crown, and so on.)</p><p><br /></p><p>The big picture goal is to be able to accurately represent the boxed tankards to potential buyers. There remains several puzzles that bear on the value and might even be an issue on where they can be sold. For example, if we get confirmation about a hallmark problem, what happens with the British market. Could they be sold into that market? A key of course is whether these are solid sterling as represented, or instead are there alloy fineness issues (material less than sterling), or non-silver parts hidden within the tankards? With that open question, it would be deceptive to have potential buyers rely on the hallmark and silver description in the booklet, given our suspicions. That would be an easy sales out, and either tankard would fetch close to melt value, if not more. Instead, hopefully we will find out what really happened here, and what the truth is about the content of the pieces, and whether they have been accurately represented by the manufacturer. Earlier, we all thought it didn&#039;t make sense these would be faked because it would be a lot of work, with limited reward. I have questions of the same sort here - why? Why go to the trouble of even using the Sheffield mark, when SC&amp;L has their own American mark that should have been effortless to use? I&#039;ve been looking for SC&amp;L examples of use of a Sheffield mark, and all the pieces I see use the American mark. Why possibly use inferior material, when you are making something on behalf of one of America&#039;s oldest companies, with a reputation of quality and honesty, dating back hundreds of years at stake?</p><p><br /></p><p>Hopefully the Sheffield results happen next week. That will at least identify what direction to go, and where future research inquires may be helpful. Although our initial inquiry with the company wasn&#039;t productive, that isn&#039;t too unexpected given how long ago these came out, and how much staff turnover would have taken place since then. With a bit more data, we&#039;ll make another attempt to get to someone at SC&amp;L with the history and level of knowledge in the company to really be helpful. That won&#039;t be the average person answering their phone, and who probably wasn&#039;t even born yet, when these products first hit the market!</p><p><br /></p><p>Dave[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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