Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Nessie





In my search for old photographs I'm coming across old family knickknacks. This is Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, dating from sometime in the 1930s or perhaps earlier. On the reverse is stamped Thune 830S. Thune was/is a Norwegian silver company and I found the 830S explained on the site modernsilver.com:

Most European countries up until 1920s used 830s. Scandinavian countries used 830s silver like Denmark moved to using 925 silver in 1927 however even though a higher grade of silver was used by most jewellers in Scandinavia, they stuck to stamping there [sic] jewellery 830s as they did not have to pay a tariff to the assaying office for the change over to 925. So most Jewellery made by fine houses in Scandinavia will in fact be marked 830s but will have a standard silver of 925 ....

2 comments:

Cheryl said...

What a wonderfully whimsical pin! That is just adorable :)

Priscilla said...

Actually it's a small ashtray, though we never used it for that. The picture does not do it justice.