Silver hallmarked knives meaning

[Kevin-B]

(I apologize in advance if this has already been answered somewhere)

So sometimes when i’m browsing on various websites for antique knives i come across these ‘silver hallmarked’ knives. These are knives with hallmarks on the blades and most of the time they have some kind of mother of pearl covers.

My question is.. what is the ‘silver hallmarked’ referring to? Is it the blade itself? Is it the bolsters, pins?
If so, would the blade be made out of solid silver or only for a certain percentage?

Does anyone have some experience and information with these quite often beautiful knives?

If you have any, definitely post them!

I’d love to learn some more about them.

The pictures i have added are some examples i came across whilst browsing.

 

[sceva]

The Blade is Silver. It is a fruit knife.

The different hallmarks tell you the fineness, where made, when etc.

 

[Kevin-B]

The Blade is Silver. It is a fruit knife.

The different hallmarks tell you the fineness, where made, when etc.

Wouldnt a silver blade be too soft and very quickly oxidize?

 

[ISKRA]

Wouldnt a silver blade be too soft and very quickly oxidize?

Soft maybe, that's why they were used only for fruit. But it's exactly because it doesn't oxidise or at least not nearly as quickly as carbon steel, that silver was used for fruit knives. Doesn't give you that metalic taste.

 

[mrknife]

not in the sense you'd think. Silver tends to oxidize when exposed to stuff containing sulfurous materials. i have rings that have turned dark just sitting there even being high polished.

 

[Will Power]

These were popular gifts in England especially in the days before stainless steel as Silver imparts less flavour than carbon steel when cutting fruits. Generally with MOP handles. Carbon backspring and or brass liners.

English silver that reaches the Sterling 92.5% minimum is hallmarked (there is the rarer Britannia silver that's 95% pure carry a Britannia mark) The Lion rampant is the Sterling purity mark, the 2 examples you show are Sheffield assay Crown mark and Birmingham assay Anchor mark. The letter refers to the year made and other marks are makers. To find out the exact year look up the style of letter AND shape of stamp on an online English Hallmarks list- you will see other assy cities- Chester, Scottish and Irish ones, London, Exeter and a few other rarer ones. Gold Hallmarks follow similar stampings but refer to carat quality 9, 14, 18, 22 ct.

Here's close up example of a large fork found in the street and given to me by an ex. The first stamp is Britannia so it's 95% pure, second the year mark K in a federal type shield is 1830, third Monarch's head Geo.IV (this practice stopped around 1890 with Victoria) fourth a Harp denoting Dublin assay with CM Charles Marsh I think as maker.

 

[Will Power]

The first knife appears to be from 1909 , second one 1916 Thomas Williams? The maker.

 

[afishhunter]

The Blade is Silver. It is a fruit knife.

The different hallmarks tell you the fineness, where made, when etc.

They also made silver blade "Melon Testers" with long thin (edge to spine) blades, again mostly with MOP covers, back in the day.

 

[Jack Black]

Cutlery companies registered silver marks with the local assay office. Many of these fruit knives were never actually used, but when they were, because of the softness of the silver, they wore quickly, and so the blades of many sit proud of the frame unfortunately. The invention of stainless steel almost completely killed off silver-bladed knives, but there are also dedicated fruit knives with stainless blades. They tend to be either expensive, in poor condition, or both, in my experience, so I don't collect them, but I have one or two