A rare George II provincial sterling silver tumbler cup, Chester 1737 by Richard Richardson II (active 1732 – 1772)

Plain rounded circular form with a gilt interior, the side engraved with contemporaneous initials S over W * I in Roman script. Fully marked underneath with maker’s mark RR in a deckled frame (Ridgeway mark 6).

Diameter – 6.1 cm / 2.45 inches

Height – 4.3 cm / 1.7 inches

Weight – 54 grams / 1.74 ozt

The makers mark on this tumbler cup, which along with the date letter is clearly struck, poses a surprise when compared to Maurice Ridgeway’s study of the succession of Richard Richardson’s of Chester. This mark, with its distinct deckled outline is recorded in Ridgeway, M. (1985). Chester Silver 1727 -1837. Sussex: Phillimore. p. 168 as first being seen in 1767/68, with use until 1779, when also used by Richard Richardson III. This tumbler cup either represents a short unrecorded usage of an identically cut mark some 30 years earlier, or, less probably, that Mark type 6 was in use much earlier than believed by Ridgeway.