Silver Spoon. Please Help w/Marks.

Mark with what appears to be an "R" or "B" and a "5(?)" within a square, within a shield....not 100% sure what that is.

Sorry, these are the best images I can provide for now.

Thanks for your time and help.

 

Popping in to say I'm working on it, nothing solid yet.

 

OK, my thoughts so far....
I have to do it this way when I work a puzzle. Others join in please.

I'm leaning French, or thereabouts. Not American or British. The fiddle-thread body has been around for centuries. The handle end design? Looks 19th century?

French theory.....
Bad strike and the crown is missing over the R? Also, there aren't enough marks? Belgium used a uncrowned letter in a shield shaped like that?

 

Thought it might've been something special. The seller was asking $40 which I thought was too much.

Thanks for taking the timeout to help, much appreciated.

 

Welll, I haven't come up with anything. French does sound like the best possibility or Hanau. I tried zooming in on the marks in hopes something would trigger recognition. Nothing did. Here are my zoomed versions. That 2nd mark almost looks like letters or numbers superimposed on top of each other???

--- Susan

 

Thanks Susan for enlarging and enhancing the images and your thoughts, much appreciated.

 

I'd have expected a French spoon to have marks struck inside the bowl near the handle joint.

I can't say where it does come from but my feeling is that it is not earlier than late 19th C.

 

Thanks, AF for taking the timeout to reply.

Whomever the marks belong to, I don't believe the piece is worth the vendor's asking price of $40.

 

I was thinking the same about French marks being found in the bowl. Then this morning I found (but did not buy) and Ercuis silverplated punch ladle with the marks on the back of the handle. So it can happen.

Unfortunately the only thing that is *possibly* French about this spoon's marks, to me, is the squarish shape of that smaller illegible mark. The flare in the handle above where it attaches to the bowl does make me think European, though.

 

Baker, I went back and had another look at the spoon's marks with my loupe, I'm certain the mark at right is the number '5' inside what appears to be a square, inside a shield-shaped punch. Still found nothing after a long search.