Sailing ship, Lighthouse, Rocks?? Any ideas

[BioProfessor]

Started hunting a new place today. It's a plantation house built about 1720. It has seen a good bit of renovation and there is a lot of fill but it seems to be old fill as the top of the ground has a good bit of old glass and pottery visible. So I guess anything is possible here.

I was just walking the grounds around the house to get a feel for the trash level and got a good signal that I had to dig. It sounded like silver and I was hoping for a coin but I got this.

I think it is nautical in nature but I don't know how to tell anything more about it.

Anybody recognize the collection of things - ships mast, lighthouse, rocks? - and have any idea if it is a charm?

Thanks for the help.

Daryl

 

[Bramblefind]

That mark might be for - Richard Hemsley- Montreal, Quebec, Canada. If so- maybe a souvenir?

I found another of a mark very similar on this piece identified as that maker:

http://www.goantiques.com/detail,richard-hemsley-victorian,394378.html

Established 1869, diamond merchant, goldsmith, silversmith. He established a Canadian copyright between 1897 and 1910 for a popular series of 26 different designs for sterling souvenir spoons. *Encyclopedia of American Silver Manufactures by Dorothy T. Rainwater.

eta- And now looking at your piece again - I wonder if it did come off of a souvenir spoon?

 

[BioProfessor]

By George I think that's him.

Now a souvenir would make sense. So sailing ship, lighthouse, and a rock. May take a Canadian to figure out where somebody went, eh?

Thanks!

Daryl

 

[Tigger]

Could the ship be over a set of locks? Over a full one, with the gate, then the lower one? Do you have any locks nearby? (like Michigan's Soo locks)
Tigger

 

[BioProfessor]

Nope. I'm in Charleston, SC.

Daryl

 

[Bramblefind]

I wonder if it had something to do with the Panama Canal? There is a Hemsley Panama souvenir spoon listed here - but unfortunately no pic:

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/richard-hemsley-canada-souvenir-spoon-of-panama

 

[diggummup]

Just my 2 cents......... I'm no expert but I have collected, bought, sold, researched and own books on antiques souvenir spoons over the last decade or so. I don't think it "came off" a souvenir spoon. I have never seen a spoon of this era that was constucted that way. They are usually one piece construction, cast or embossed. I think it is clearly a pinback (small as it may be) with the pin missing. It is a nice find by the way.

 

[BioProfessor]

I tend to agree. It would be "odd" for the decorative part of a spoon to be marked this way and not show attachment marks that resemble a spoon handle.

Wouldn't a spoon with this attached only be hallmarked in one place - on the spoon handle?

Daryl

 

[Bramblefind]

I'll concede on the spoon idea Just making some speculation based on the limited info about the maker. The pinback idea does sound like the way to go.

 

[Bramblefind]

I also just wanted to say that I looked at the bottom image right now and suddenly I am seeing a fish

 

[BioProfessor]

Me Too!

The more I look at this pin, the more I like it. Just wish I knew what or where it represented.

Thanks!!

Daryl

 

[DD-777]

Could it possibly be related to the whaling industry? Looks like a shipyard to me as well...

 

[hellhoot]

The writing on the back where it is seems to me like what ever was weilded to it were two small things possibly 3 (one big thing at the top and 2 things at the bottom) to the back as the words would be somehwere where u can find them to read clearly or easily so im leaning more towards some kind of pin. At first i was thinking it came off from something bigger but it wouldnt make any sense for the proof mark to be behind something u couldnt read and hidden.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

I also just wanted to say that I looked at the bottom image right now and suddenly I am seeing a fish

Yes its an Angelfish. Where is the rock?