Victorian Sterling Silver Salver, Sheffield 1859, Engraved Foliage

• Salver - A plate or tray used for the formal offering of food, drink, letters or visiting cards, usually of silver plate, silver or silver-gilt. Large, heavy, oblong or oval silver salvers evolved into what we know as trays in the 18th century. Small, flat salvers are known as waiters.
• Engraving - The method of decorating or creating inscriptions on silver and other metal objects by marking the surface with a sharp instrument such as a diamond point or rotating cutting wheel.
• Sterling Silver - Sterling silver is a mixture of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% of another metal, usually copper. Fine silver is 99.9% pure silver, and is relatively soft and the addition of the very small amount of copper gives the metal enough strength and hardness to be worked into jewellery, decorative and household objects.
• Hallmarks - A mark stamped on articles of precious metals in Britain, since the 14th century, certifying their purity. It derives its name from the Guild Hall of the Goldsmiths' Company, who recieved its Charter in 1327 giving it the power to assay (test the purity) and mark articles of gold and silver.
  
  The hallmark will consist of several marks, including the:
  
  - silver standard mark, indicating the purity of the metal. Sterling silver is .925 pure silver.
  
  - the city mark indicating the city in which it was assayed eg London, Birmingham, York etc.
  
  - the date mark, usually a letter of the alphabet in a particular font and case,
  
  - a duty mark, indicating whether duty had been paid to the crown, and only in use from 1784 to 1890
  
  The piece may include an additional mark, the maker's mark, although not forming part of the hallmark, will be located in the vicinity of the hallmarks.
  
  Sometimes silver plated items will bear faux hallmarks, often confusing those not familiar with silver markings.
• Registered Design - During the period 1842-1883 the Patent Office issued a diamond mark along with the registration number when a design was registered.
  
  Besides indicating that the design had been registered, a diamond mark offered the buyer the reassurance of knowing an item was of British design. It assured the person registering the design a degree of protection from copying.
  
  The mark was created to identify the type of material used (known as the class), how many items were included, (sometimes known as bundles or packages), and the date of registration.
  
  On the diamond mark the year of registration is shown along with the month code. However, there are two ranges of year codes; 1842-1867 and 1868-1883. By looking at the design of the diamond mark you should be able to determine the correct year from the design of the diamond mark and the placing of the day number.
  
  Source and further information: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/reg-design-diamond.htm
• Victorian Period - The Victorian period of furniture and decorative arts design covers the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. There was not one dominant style of furniture in the Victorian period. Designers used and modified many historical styles such as Gothic, Tudor, Elizabethan, English Rococo, Neoclassical and others, although use of some styles, such as English Rococo and Gothic tended to dominate the furniture manufacture of the period.
  
  The Victorian period was preceded by the Regency and William IV periods, and followed by the Edwardian period, named for Edward VII (1841 ? 1910) who was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India for the brief period from 1901 until his death in 1910.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• Martin Hall & Co. (England) - silver, maker or retailer 170
• salvers - silver, Victorian and later 388