Featured Sam Clemens or goat man?

With bird of paradise?

 

Colonel Sanders' great grandpa.

No marks on the bottom? I have a couple unmarked silver plate napkin rings with the same "impressed" decoration technique.

 

Only marked 8. I found a similar handle on a cup by Providence.

 

Huh. I've only seen Providence in jewelry. Interesting.

 

It was a trade name for Aurora silverplate co

 

Gotcha.

 

Looks a bit like Robert E. Lee

 

I really haven't a clue to his ID. On first sight, Wild Bill Cody came to mind with that type of beard rather than Samuel Clemens. Then I tried to connect such a bearded man to the homelands of Birds of Paradises - no luck. I'm woefully ignorant on Birds of Paradise. It seems they are plentiful in the Indonesia corner of the world. I thought they would be inhabitants of any rain forest. If so then South America (Amazon Basin) and the man possibly Simón Bolívar. Welllll Bolívar didn't have a beard like this. I'm not even sure that's a bird of paradise.

That's as good a guess for anything I could come up with. LOL

--- Susan

 

That particular bird is not uncommon on the goods of the late 1800s. I've seen it before and have not even tried to figure out what species.