Featured Small round footed silver piece

This is another piece that has been hanging around too long.

I am almost certain it is plate but there are no usual marks. The marks that are there look to be etched & the best I can make out because they are so light they are -

1/+/B over GM / Cea & 2 11 4-1

It is 5 3/8" across & is 1" to the side edge. The indentation is 3 3/8" across.

It cleaned up nicely considering how absolutely black it was before polishing.



Thanks for any & all advice or opinions!!

 

I wish I could say something more encouraging, but those scratched numbers and letters are not indicative of a maker or fineness. Probably silver plated. May have meant something to a previous owner, but in the grand scheme of things, only important to that person.

Does a bottle of wine fit in it?

 

Thanks Sue!!

Like I said I doubted that it was any great shakes but it came out of a box of assorted silver stuff that included a Tiffany sterling piece as well as several other sterling items. So I just wanted to get a second opinion before it got relegated to the go-to auction box.

I'll have to try out a wine bottle.

I thought maybe for a pillar candle.

 

Sometimes those types of markings were done for identification purposes in the event of theft.

Debora

 

I think one of the skinnier bottles of wine would probably fit.........​

 

That's what I was thinking too, a wine bottle coaster. There might have once been a piece of cork on the inside to blot up the drips. That may be why the inside is not scratched. I have one and use it frquently to keep the drips from staining my white tablecloth. It's plated and might be Poole.

 

Hmm . . . just read the inside diameter. 3 3/8" is small for a wine bottle, mine is 4".

Maybe it's an underplate for something? I would use that for flat wrapped candles or small mints, etc.

 

I think that's a date: 1/1/13.

 

Being that I loathe polishing silver I will be sending this piece to a new home one way or another.

I only polished it up because it was a nice-looking piece & I thought for sure there would be a mark that was just being obscured by all the tarnish.

 

I have 2 Silverplated pieces (little bowls, candy, etc) that are excellent quality and not marked. In a deep dive search I discovered, by finding the patterns, that they are English. They are so nice that I kept them both. It seems to me that better silverplated pieces stay untarnished a little longer.