I picked this little guy up at a yard sale yesterday for $1. I don’t know much about pewter but I can tell it has some age to it. If anyone could help identify the marks and the age, it would be much appreciated!!!
Unfortunately, you didn't offer the dimensions of your piece?
But I'm thinking it may have been a flagon that has lost it's handle and has been 're-purposed'.
Your piece is definitely old though... without being able to physically inspect it, I'm thinking British late 18th - early 19thc.
"The maker's mark, known as a touch mark, was always stamped on, never engraved. Very early touch marks were small, perhaps just a set of initials, and usually appeared on the handle of a mug, or on the rim of a plate. Later, marks got larger, and migrated to the base of a piece. Quality marks appear on some pieces. Hard metal was marked with an X, and some pieces were stamped 'Superfine'. A rose and crown mark was another guarantee of quality. A letter X, with or without a crown, indicates that a piece is made of fine, lead free plate pewter; as does a 'Superfine' stamp. Early excise marks, stamped on measuring jugs, had the monarch's initial and a town mark. In the 1870s, a town number was added.
Reproductions of earlier pieces became common in the 1920s, as part of the fashion for all things Tudor and Jacobean. Indeed, traditional pewter goods are still made today, although new manufacturing methods are often used, and modern pewter never contains more than a trace of lead.
An important note for today's collectors. Pewter's popularity and value is on the rise. In May, Sotheby's sold several 18th and 19th-century pewter objects for well above their estimated price. A late 18th-century English pewter flagon, for instance, was estimated at $100 to $150, and it sold for $1,125. So, next time you feel like polishing your pewter stein, fight the urge. You could be wiping away real value."
