The Aberdeen silversmith’s missing marks

October 2011

An extremely rare set of six fiddle pattern teaspoons by James Emslie. The letter ‘A’ is probably a pseudo Edinburgh date letter for 1832.

by Michael Wilson

James Emslie was a highly trained silversmith in Aberdeen during the 19th century. From an apprentice, he had worked his way through the system to become a member of the Hammermans Trades. This allowed him to practice his craft in the City of Aberdeen as a freeman.

Although he is well known as having been involved in two business partnerships with firstly Alexander Mollison and then John Sutherland, it is as a sole trader that he is of interest to us.

To be fair to James Emslie he did not lose his marks, we did that for him. As was the custom in these times provincial silversmiths did not send all their work to Edinburgh to be tested, or assayed, as the law said they must. In fact they sent very little and some sent none at all.

By law all wrought silver items such as spoons, forks and teapots had to be sent to the Assay office in Edinburgh (or Glasgow after 1819) to be tested and marked, with a set of Hallmarks, to prove that the silver was at least 92.5% pure. Edinburgh and Glasgow were the only cities in Scotland that had Assay offices. There was also a small matter of duty to be paid on the weight of silver used.

You would assume that the distance involved and the dangers of transporting valuable items around the country would be the excuse for not complying with the law. It probably had a great deal more to do with money and the desire of all involved, both customers and silversmiths, not to have to pay the relevant taxes.

So all the provincial silversmiths who operated in all parts of Scotland, outwith Edinburgh and Glasgow, marked their pieces of silver simply with their town mark – such as ‘ABD’ for Aberdeen – and their maker’s mark, which was more often than not their own initials.

This brings me back to how we managed to lose James Emslie’s marks.

He was very unfortunate to have the same initials as one of Aberdeen’s most famous and prolific silversmiths, James Erskine, who lived and worked up until 1820, a mere 12 years before James Emslie appears.

By the very nature of the tax evasion that these silversmiths were practising they would not have kept records of their output, or indeed of the customers they were selling to. We have suffered for the lack of these records. We assumed that all examples of silver found with ‘JE’ stamped on them were made by James Erskine. We had, in fact, lost James Emslie and his marks along the way.

Now James Emslie was not entirely dishonest. He did between 1841 and 1843 send several parcels of silver to the Edinburgh office to be assayed, and subsequently paid the relevant duty. The Edinburgh Assay Office has records of most of the marks the makers used when they got their silver assayed and from these records we have found original James Emslie’s original makers mark.

Recently a rare set of teaspoons was offered for sale at a local auction house in Aberdeen. These spoons were listed as being made by James Erskine as they had a ‘JE’ makers mark; but they also had a capital letter ‘A’ alongside it. This letter ‘A’ was a crude attempt to copy the Edinburgh Assey Office date letter for 1832.

Here is the interesting twist. James Erskine died in 1820, so these spoons could not have been made by him. The only other silversmith with these initials during this period was James Emslie. So by matching these ‘JE’ makers marks to the ones held in Edinburgh, we proved that they were indeed James Emslie’s and that he did make silver spoons with only the town and his maker’s marks.

We had found Emslie’s marks and he could at last be given the due recognition of his craft.

Michael Wilson has for years collected and dealt in Aberdeen silver, and photographed the makers’ marks. His new book, Aberdeen Silver: A Collectors’ Guide, is he says, not for the academic, but for the collector.

This is an article from the October 2011 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, subscribe to Leopard Magazine.