Egyptian Silver Bowl

tamrock · Jun 24, 2022

Picked this up very cheap at a little church run thrift store. It has some stampings on the bottom that are fairly worn down, but I do believe it to be a pure silver piece of less than sterling from what research I've come across. Maybe .800/1000 or more? I just don't see any indication of it being plated, unless it's a very heavy plate.?

Red-Coat · Jun 24, 2022

Definitely silver, Tamrock.

These are your marks, I think.

The centre mark is generally referred to as a “lotus” blossom (although more properly a papyrus flower) in a cartouche with cut-off corners, which was introduced as the mark for silver in October 1947 and in use until 1966. From 1966 the field around the flower has small dots on it.

The mark at the left denotes the assay office, with an indication of fineness in Arabic numbers below it. In this case Alexandria, with ‘90’ below for .900 fine silver.

The mark at the right gives the date period in Arabic. I’ve yet to find a suitable table that shows the Arabic in the stylised form used for marking rather than the actual script but, from the table below, I read it as the mark used between 1962-1965 in stylised form (but I could be wrong about that).