Topic: Maker of mysterious moody paperweight ?

[gleaming]

Hi All,

Does anyone know the maker of this mysterious moody paperweight?  It has a silver base, so no clues from the base.
Thanks!!

[gleaming]

I noticed KevinH's good suggestion to use the Picresize site to improve the photos, and I am adding a few larger photos of the mysterious moody unknown paperweight.  The canes remind me of coral.

[flying free]

Silly question but the base looks a little bit French.  If it is silver have you checked for a very small Minerva mark?
I have a large piece of French silver that is marked but the mark is incredibly tiny and difficult to find.
Can you put a photo on of the base please?  curious to see the design on it.

m

[gleaming]

Thank you, flying free, for mentioning the silver base.  I have never seen a paperweight with a silver base before.  It has a maker's mark of SL.  I have tried to capture the three imprints that would indicate the location of the maker, the grade of silver and the year.  Unfortunately these three marks are so very tiny that I would need a higher power magnification to decipher what they are.  If you can shed any light on this I would be greatly appreciative.

[flying free]

sorry I don't know much about silver.
The page I looked at seemed to say that the vast majority of French silver found today was made after 1838 and only carries two marks: Silver guarantee and Maker's mark.
So that might rule out France for the silver.
m

[gleaming]

Thank you, Flying Free, for checking on the French silver marks.  I did find a British silversmith named Simon Levy who in the first half of the 19th century used the SL hallmark, but I don't know if this is the same maker.

[user9318]

The middle imprint looks like the Hibernia mark used for Dublin hallmarked silver, the other two marks are not clear enough to determine what they are. Is the one on the left a harp by any chance? If so, it is silver that was hallmarked in Dublin, the mark on the right will be a date letter.

If you have a camera with a macro function, you might be able to a clearer photo of the marks.

[gleaming]

Thank you, User9318, for this good information about Dublin silver hallmarks. 

Lacking a macro lens, I used a set of diopter lens, but even combining them all, I couldn't get a closer look at the hallmarks.  I hope to order some extension tubes to increase the magnification.

That is a good tip about the Dublin hallmarks.

[chopin-liszt]

The silver and the glass are not neccessarily made together, the silver base could have been added at a later date by an owner rather than the manufacturer.
I don't think your weight has canes in it, it looks much more like a spatter decoration.

[gleaming]

Thank you, Chopin-liszt for this good observation that the silver base could have been added at a later date. That is certainly true.

From looking closely at the paperweight, I would say that they probably are individually made blue, red and pink canes rather than splatter or frit work.  However, they are not millefiori canes.  There must have been another technique for making these canes that I am unfamiliar with.  Where you can see the bottom of a few blue and red canes, the bottom of the canes are white.

Thank you again for your good observations.