Bronze candlestick makers mark

Can anyone make heads or tails of the mark? I suppose even if one could it wouldn’t end in an ID. Not as if candlestick makers are cataloged well unless they were made in silver. From an epic collection of early and very high quality sticks. This one was grouped together with a handful of others though. Sale runner didn’t think too much of that group I guess. Though I think they are likely to be mostly 18th century. Some sticks/pairs were bringing 5k-10k without even being silver. Early and rare. Anyhow I like my little grouping. This is the only marked example. Worth a longshot here. I’ve been surprised here many a time.

This stick is significantly heavier than the others, hence my bronze assumption. Even though it doesn’t necessarily look like most bronze. It also rings like a bell. I think it’s likely British I’d guess early 19th but 18th could be just as likely.

 

Russian? Last part looks like МИН Ь

 

М КУЗМИН Ь?
But no luck finding anything relevant with that name. Only a Mikhail Kuzmin, but he was a poet, musician and novelist

 

That would certainly explain why I couldn’t make sense of the lettering. Thanks!

 

Cyrillic writing for sure.

 

My memory is rather hazy, but I think those separately made bobeches were first made in the 18th century.
Equally hazy, I seem to remember the screwed on base-stick connection first appeared in the mid 19th century. Before that the bottom end of the candlestick was preened in the base.

 

@IvaPan , @nastina.nastea , can you make something of the stamp?

 

https://violity.com/ru/118016796-staryj-podsvechnik-klejmo-m-kuzmin

"Старый подсвечник. Клеймо М. Кузмин"
(An old candlestick. Marked “M. Kuzmin”)

 

https://auction.ru/offer/podsvechnik_bronza_fabrika_m_kuzmina_19_vek_klejmo-i90852458558668.html


This one's 19th century according to the seller

 

I’ll be damned. You are really good at this. Someone should be paying you fro be a professional researcher! Thank you!

 

I'll send you an invoice ...

 

Sorry, I’m on vacations at the moment and haven’t spent much time with my phone in hands but I see you already found all the info on this candlestick. Just to confirm, it is marked “М. Кузминъ”. I’ll try to find something about maker, however I’m not sure it will be successful, as it might be a small workshop.

 

Have a great time.

 

Sorry for being so late just to confirm the makers's mark М. Кузминъ and that it is Imperial Russian, the script is before the reform of the Bolsheviks in 1918

 

Interesting information, thank you.

 

According to it, the letter "Ъ" at the end of the word was removed. So if you happen to see Russian text with "Ъ" at then end of (some) words (we are talking only about the end of the word, otherwise it can be present as a separator within the word, some examples are given below), it was written before the revolution.

Interestingly, the same rule was valid in the Bulgarian writing and was excluded after 1944.

Below is the wiki page in Russian, it does not have an English version (has some other version though)

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Реформа_русской_орфографии_1918_года

.....
исключалась буква Ер (твёрдый знак (Ъ)) на конце слов и частей сложных слов, но позже стала использоваться только в качестве разделительного знака (подъём, адъютант);
....