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Stieff date marks from 1901-1980
This CHART is from the Online Encyclopedia of Silver Marks, Hallmarks and Makers Marks.
PLEASE NOTE:
FLATWARE IS NEVER MARKED WITH DATE MARKS
Stars, T, M, H or other marks are not date marks on FLATWARE
The pieces that had been STIEFF and became Kirk-Stieff pieces continued the number system,
so a 23 would appear on a 1981 piece, a 24 on a 1982 and so on.
Note that 1944 skipped over the I as it would look to much
like the mark for 1921. Also skipped over are the Q and V, so be careful when checking dates. Do not assume letters are consecutive w/out breaks.
Be careful not to confuse date marks an ITEM NUMBERS
1917 was a transition year for date marks. The year opened with the traditional circle with a 17 inside. The two marks shown above were also used.
Date marks were used on STERLING SILVER Hollow Ware, but not flatware.
Many piece of PEWTER were date marked with the date mark coming after the item number like CW12-10 is from 1968, 10 being the date mark. A pewter vase with the markings P 131 is NOT from 1950, the year P=1950, in this case the P is there to identify the item number relates to Pewter. P 131 vases are not date marked as well as many other pewter items... normally these high volume types of items were made in large numbers and warehoused for the holiday season. The same can be said of Stieff pewter Jefferson Cups for the most part, although some of them are date marked.