Description

A well proportioned early English silver mug with plain styling and a single banded ornament. Excellent colour. Engraved initials “HS” below.

Contains 650 ml.
Weight 373 grams, 12 troy ounces.
Height 13.5cm (to top of handle). Diameter 8.8 (top).
London 1712.
Maker William Pearson.
Britannia standard silver.

Marks. Stamped under the outside rim with a full set of English silver hallmarks; maker’s mark to the handle.

*Britannia Standard silver is 95.8% pure. In 1696, so extensive had become the melting and clipping of coinage that the silversmiths were forbidden to use the sterling standard for their wares, but had to use a new higher standard, 95.8 per cent pure. New hallmarks were ordered, “the figure of a woman commonly called Britannia” and the lion’s head erased (torn off at the neck) replacing the lion passant and the leopard’s head crowned. This continued until the old standard of 92.5 per cent was restored in 1720. Britannia standard silver still continues to be produced even today.

Literature. The term “mug” is traditionally used for a single-handed, lidless drinking vessel. They are nearly all of either pint or half pint capacity. Antique silver mugs are very rarely found as early as tankards, the earliest seeming to date from about 1680.