Topic: Mystery salt cellar- I-OMMET = Russian

[heartofglass]

Awesome work everyone!
What a team of detectives we have at our disposal on the G.M.B!
I'm very pleased to find out that it's Russian & the lettering is in Cyrillic.
It's a long way from home......
The shop I got it in often has a lot of unusual items, many probably brought in by migrants in the post-war era. So perhaps it belonged to someone fleeing the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe....if only these objects we find could tell us their stories. We can only imagine....
So interesting! No wonder I couldn't find anything by looking for "Siommet".
And I thought it was French! :oops:
So, do we think it's Art Nouveau or Art Deco? It sort of looks a little bit of both styles.

[miook]

Hi,

I just stumbled across this thread topic while researching a salt cellar I have with the same marking SIOMMET.  Mine differs in that it is red and white enamel loops on a brass background.  By way of provenance, I purchased it from a second-hand shop in Prague, Czech Republic which would make it either Russian or similar.  When searching a few months back I did see one the same as mine which also included a similarly marked salt spoon.

Miook

[Lea]

Since I've just joined the board, this reply is a bit late.  However, I can certainly solve some of the mystery.

I-OMMET, pronounced 'yummet', is the mark of the metal-working centre of Mstera Jewellers.  The number in front is, I believe, some sort of date code, but I haven't yet cracked it.  Yours is probably a '5'.

There should be a second marking that looks somewhat like 'u?p??K', where my ?s are replaced by numerals.  The 'u' is really a Cyrillic 'ch' and is short for 'price', 'p' is the Cyrillic letter 'r', and well, 'K' is 'k'.  This represents the original price in rubles and kopeks (100 to the ruble).  It says something about the old economy of the USSR that a price would be permanently stamped on an item.

The metal of the holder is melchior, an alloy developed by the Russians to mimic silver, which it does exceedingly well, often even fooling the experts.  I spend a lot of time on ebay convincing sellers that, no, their item is not sterling, and not even silverplate.  I don't think this makes me very popular.  :-)

The glass liners certainly tend to vary in quality:  some of them are rather wavy and crudely made.  None of them are what I would call fine glass.  Despite all this, I have a large collection of this type of salts.

Lea

[Ivo]

  I don't think this makes me very popular.  :-)

Oh but I assure you it does! That s a wonderful reply, welcome to the board - hope you're here to stay!

[Anne]

Lea, that's fabulous, and welcome to the board.

I've snaffled a slightly larger copy of Marinka's image from GlassGallery and added it directly here to show the mark detail (click the thumbnail below to see it.) There is, as you indicated, a second mark with the characters you stated...

[Lea]

Thank you, Anne and Ivo, for your kind words of encouragement.

So, the original price was 1 ruble, 75 kopeks, which would have made it a relatively expensive purchase for a local resident at the time but reasonably affordable for a tourist, even at the vastly overinflated exchange rate of rubles for dollars.

Just by way of introducing myself a bit, I'll add that I mainly collect open salts, in any material, but the bulk of my collection is of glass.  Also, the older I get, the more I seem drawn to glass objects in general.  I'm especially fond of Scandinavian glass, having purchased my first Orrefors vase in Stockholm at the tender age of fifteen, and Finnish glass too. 

At the moment I'm slowly going through many of the threads here and learning all kinds of fascinating, if useless  , knowledge--the best kind, IMHO!

[Lustrousstone]

I've literally just seen a salt just like Marinka's labelled as Russian silver in an antique centre at wait for it...

£75   

Funnily enough I left it there!

[Lea]

Smart lady! 

They go on ebay for $5 to $30, depending on the condition, the rarity of the particular design, and the number of newbies who are trying to outbid each other right from the beginning.

Interestingly, despite the sense we might have of Russians trying to take advantage of Westerners with more dollars than sense, it's usually the Russian sources that get the material right and the antique dealers who get it wrong!  Unfortunately, there will always be someone who comes along to pay the asking price.  I believe I started out that way!