Another "what is it".....

[sapphire]

Visiting a growing thrift shop in my village (a wonderful community options project and near daily stop) I picked this up and
just wanted to see what feed back I get.

Trying to decide if it's a budvase or a lady's perfume bottle.

It measures 8 1/4" high, 3 1/2" across the base (widest).  Cut glass (figure it's not crystal as no 'ping').

The marks, which were buried under an incredible amount of tarnish read:

L A    anchor   lion    i  (in a 'square')

Am I 'reading' this correctly as Birmingham, 1908 ?  Couldn't find an L A reference in relation to a maker.

[sapphire]

The silver rim is loose and floats, having already been reglued and dried out at least once.  Can't figure out if this is
just a decorative feature or originally held a stopper.


(Excuse the water drops, gonna have to try ironlord's cleaning method)

[sapphire]

Another, clearer shot of the marks....

[sapphire]

Now that my eyes are starting to fall out of my head I'm wondering if I read those marks right.
The only reference I've found so far to the 'L A' matches up with the mark of Lawrence Aitchison
of Glasgow, with dates of 1840-1859 (for flatware)!  But the anchor/lion are still attributed to
Birmingham.

[winffup]

Now that my eyes are starting to fall out of my head I'm wondering if I read those marks right.
The only reference I've found so far to the 'L A' matches up with the mark of Lawrence Aitchison
of Glasgow, with dates of 1840-1859 (for flatware)!  But the anchor/lion are still attributed to
Birmingham.

Same here, the "i" puts it at 1908

[sapphire]

Beginning to wonder if it's actually even British with the 'L A' in question.

Came across this in my travels.......

"At the beginning of the 19th century Canadian hallmarks imitated English ones.Examples even occur of imitations of the English official hallmarks, for instance the duty mark.  In 1908 a law came into effect—valid until 1946— requiring a fineness of 925/1000 in silver work. "


http://freespace.virgin.net/a.data/canada.htm

[waywardangler]

I can't really tell from the pics but the silver ring is open and not closed? so a stem could fit in there?  The center hole also looks pretty rough but as there is no pic of the top of the silver ring I am looking at a pic through the glass stem.  I believe this would be a bud vase as a perfume bottle would more than likely have had a ground inside lip with a ground stopper or a threaded cap with threaded neck.  I have no idea on the silver markings as my bookmarks are on another computer than what I am on right now.  I would take the silver ring off, smooth out the edges, remove all the old glue, reset the ring and use it as a bud vase.  Quite classy with a silver ringed rim.

[ironlord1963]

   I would also vote on the bud vase ideal, sounds kind of big for a perfume bottle, and not much volume to be a decanter.

[sapphire]

Still continuing the hunt, but wanted to post this as I'll likely never come across it when I wanted to.  Some
good links here by the look of it.

http://www.leopardantiques.com/object/externallink/list

[sapphire]

A couple more shots, the ring is very fragile....reminds me of bbq tinfoil. Don't think it would ever have stood up to the
wear of a stopper.  Guess I got myself a budvase.  Would like to be able to confirm the date...was thrilled when the
chart showed 1908, as I picked this up Saturday which would have been my mom's birthday......she was born in 1908!

[sapphire]

The rest of the pics..

[waywardangler]

Much, much better idea of the silver ring now!  I am still voting for bud vase, sapphire.

[KC]

Bud Vase!

During the mid 1900's they were putting silver tops to cut crystal bowls, vases, etc to make them fancier.   This expanded the market and allowed companies to grow - since the average person wasn't able to buy solid silver pieces and the market was low.

By-the-way, our silver lips on our crystal bowls came unglued as well and we haven't reglued successfully.