Antique Sterling Silver Fork?

This is a Sterling Silver fork I purchased at the thrift store a while ago. It measures about 7" in length and on the front I think it says "Pister Bonaventure" or "Lister Bonaventure".

On the back is a Lion facing right, an Anchor and I think the letter "G" for Gorham. It also says Sterling and has the letter "E" in a Diamond shape.

When I look the sterling marks up it says it's Gorham for the year 1872. I think it is the Gorham letter "G" for that for that time period. I tried to find the name Lister and Pister Bonaventure that is on the fork without any success. Does anyone know if that name is a place or person or something else? Thanks in advance for any info.

 

Those are Gorham marks, the pattern is 'Wreath', introduced in 1911, the 'E' is a weight mark indicating 'Extra', one step above the the lowest 'Trade' weight - the engraving is 'Sister Bonaventure', most likely a nun...

~Cheryl

 

Cheryl, thanks for that info! I didn't think that letter was an "S" for "Sister" but that makes more sense to me now. Also, thanks for pointing out what the letter "E" was. Here I was thing it was a date mark but that would not be possible with the Gorham Wreath pattern. Now I will have to continue my search with the name on the handle.

 

It was extremely uncommon for Gorham to use date codes on flatware, they were used almost exclusively on holloware, and some of those weren't date coded.

~Cheryl