Gorham Sterling Silver Sandwich Plate #746 Chantilly-Duchess Pattern; date 1963

Description

DESCRIPTION:
Gorham Sterling Silver Sandwich Plate #746, 10 1/2" diameter
PATTERN:
Chantilly-Duchess
DATED:
1963
PLATE WEIGHT:
12.85 oz t; 398 grams;
14.1 oz
CONDITION:
Pre-owned. Sterling silver. One light scratch on outer ring of plate. Plate could use a good cleaning/buffing to remove surface "streaking" visible under certain lighting.   Overall solid, high quality, and attractive decorative piece
PATTERN INFO - ART NOUVEAU TIME PERIOD
:
Issue Date: 1895.
Designed by William Christmas Codman. Named for the Chantilly region in northern France. Codman described the pattern as having "exquisite elegance, simplicity, timeless character, and harmony of effect in every detail".
DATING THE AGE OF GORHAM SILVER:
When Gorham adopted the sterling standard in 1868, they began a system of year-marks which were stamped into their products to denote the year in which
they were made. Starting with A for 1868, letters of the alphabet were used until 1884 (Q). From 1885 until 1933 a different symbol was used each year.
This dating system was also used on silver plate items.
The use of the year mark was suspended until 1941, at which time Gorham silver adopted a system of marking their "IMPORTANT PIECES" with polygonal figures surrounding a numeral. The number of the sides indicated the decade of manufacture, the numeral, the year. 1950, 1960, 1970 and 1980 dates had no numeral.  (i.e., the item listed here has the number '3' within a 6 sided polygon meaning it was mfg in 1963)