need info on old silver ring
Hi, I recently uneartherd a small silver ring. It depicts what appears
to be a man with a woman standing next to him. It is silver and small.
I've included these pictures. The ring has hallmarks, and I've drawn
them to the best of my ability. They are on the bottom of the outer
part of the ring, and they are VERY small. I had to use a light and a
magnifying glass to be able to see them. They may not be exactly
right, but it's the best I can see. I know with these marks I can
determine the age and origins of the ring.
I have received info that this ring might have originated in
Northeastern Europe or Russia. Indeed the letters on the bottom do
seem to be more cyrillic than anything else. I really don't have much
of a clue though.
Anyone that can lend some info please do, or if you can send me info
on somewho who can help me, that'd be great too. Anything you can tell
me would be appreciated!
Your confidence in those hallmarks may, unfortunately, be overstated. If the
ring were made in Great Britain, there would be specific marks indeed
indicating the year it was made, the metal it's made from, and the maker, all of
which could be looked up. But most other countries don't have such a
stringent marking requirement. In the U.S., for example, manufacturers do
their own marking, and dates are not part of the mark at all. And even then,
sometimes figuring out who's mark is on the ring can be difficult if the
trademark wasn't properly registered (which is more common than one would like,
even though the law requires trademarks to be registered in most cases.)
The marks you drew don't look even remotely like British hallmarks, and I can't
really say I recognize them. Obviously, others might, but the easiest ones to
identify, the British marks, unfortunately aren't what you've got on your ring.
Can you tell us, perhaps, a little more about the history of the ring which you
know? such as, you say you unearthed it. does that mean you dug it up from the
ground, or what? And, where are you located? Does your area have a specific
ethnic origin that might give us a clue?
One thing I notice is the open gap in the shank under the design part, which was
just attached to the unsoldered shank. That suggests rather inexpensive
manufucaturing methods, so it might be the ring is something that was rather
mass produced, or at least, not highly valued at the time of it's manufacture.
The use of silver, too, suggests that as well.
The letters are cyrillic: kh ts p s (khah tseh peh es); stamping on
the outside of the shank is typical of the Soviet era, and the
quality, or the lack of it, would support this. Could the stamp be a
'T' in a triangle?