Featured Tree Trunk Silver Candleholder Help

Friends-
Please check out this 2-1/2" candleholder. Believe its silver but can't find a mark for it. Designed as a gnarled, naturalistic tree trunk base. There's a tiny touchmark inside a lozenge-shaped reserve with what appear to be the letters AB. As I'm writing this I discovered another tiny indentation, this one in the shape of a flower (it has a scalloped edge). Not sure but it looks like a head in profile facing right. I'll try to take a picture of it later but think it's too small for my camera to get a good image. Any thoughts? I know it's banged up but it's so neat I want to give it a little attention. Thanks.

 

Is your other mark here? Austria-Hungary Hallmarks • Online Encyclopedia of Silver Marks, Hallmarks & Makers' Marks

~Cheryl

 

Thank you, Cheryl! I do believe it's the Diana's head mark circa 1872-1922. That is definitely the cartouche shape. I'm stoked to know. Now to work on the AB. Appreciate it!

 

Seems a bit deep for a candle - might suggest it's a toothpick holder...

~Cheryl

 

a tree trunk , would fit !

 

a pen stand , perhaps !

 

Depth is 1-1/2". A toothpick works ok. Too shallow for a pen do you think?

 

It doesn't look as if it were designed to hold a fountain pen. And it's a bit narrow, I would think for an ink well -- although here's one that's similar.

Debora

 

I understood the item to be 2 1/2 tall.......

 

Lew, Cheryl settled the country and the window for you, so I will not re-tread that. Two things in here still have no numbers on them, and both are checkable, so here they are with the sources.

First, the AB you are still hunting. On the 1872 to 1922 Austro-Hungarian system the town control office code sits inside the Diana punch, not next to it. silvercollection.it's Austrian hallmarks page, 1872 to 1922 section, puts it plainly: "In 1872 the alphanumeric code identifying the town control office was reinstated inside the Diana or small piece hallmarks." The same section illustrates six punches for that period, four Diana ones for 950, 900, 800 and 750, and two more it labels small pieces. At 2 1/2 inches you are squarely in small piece territory, so that tiny flower shaped indentation you found while typing may be the official small piece punch rather than a decorative dot, and the AB in its own lozenge would then be the maker struck separately. Worth laying your two marks against those six pictures before you go digging for AB in a maker index, because right now you do not know which of the two you are actually looking up.

Second, the money, which nobody has touched. Two searches, both eBay sold, last 90 days.

Search: antique silver toothpick holder. 25 closed, $10.69 to $180.00, median $40.00. Read the titles though, because they are the story: Viners, F.B. Rogers, Derby, Webster, Pairpoint, Wilcox. Almost the whole population is silverplate. The one that stands out is a Wilcox silverplate porcupine at $125.00 on 13 Sep 2026, which says a strong naturalistic figure pulls three times the median even in plate.

Search: austro hungarian 800 silver. 13 closed, $37.75 to $693.99, median $204.84. Most of that is flatware and jewellery selling by weight, so the only honest analogue in it is one line: "Excellent Austro-Hungarian Small 800 Silver Beaker or Tot, marked" which hammered at $37.75 on 10 Aug 2026 at auction.

Now the part that decides yours, and it is arithmetic rather than opinion. Silver closed today at $65.35 an ounce spot (api.gold-api.com, 17 Sep 2026 21:48 UTC) with front month futures at $65.72, so a gram of fine silver is $2.10. At 800 fine that is about $1.68 a gram of object. The threshold you care about: 24 grams. Above roughly 24 grams your piece is worth more as metal than the median sale of the entire toothpick holder category, hallmark, tree trunk, Vienna and all. And it cuts the other way too, because that $37.75 beaker was under its own melt if it weighed more than about 22 grams, which a marked beaker very likely did.

So the first thing to do is weigh it, in grams, not guess at it. That single number tells you whether you are holding a $40 curiosity or a piece with a metal floor that no eBay auction crowd is currently respecting.

On toothpick versus pen versus inkwell, Debora and komokwa have it covered better than I would, but the comps do answer one bit of it. Three of the 25 sold titles are literally "Toothpick/Match Holder" as one word, from Derby, Laben and an unattributed Victorian cherub. Sellers do not separate the two, so whichever you land on, it does not move the money. If you want to settle it for yourself, look for a deliberately roughened or ribbed band, usually the base rim or an applied panel, because a match stand needed somewhere to strike and a toothpick holder never did.

Happy to pull a longer window or a different keyword set if you want to see more of these before you decide anything.