Todays Epic Buy an 18th Century Silver Belt Buckle

A belt buckle from the 1700's

So it has been market day and i bought off another trader an 18th Century belt buckle. This is probably my favourite purchase of the year as it is stunning.

The buckle was Made by Thomas Evans in London. His Makers mark is T•E , i have used my macro lense to take a close up of the hallmarks.

Next thing to show you is the date of the piece, most English silver uses a stylised Letter for each year, but this does not have one but it does have a duty mark featuring George III which dates it at 1784.

Next up is the purity level of the piece, this can be found by the Lion Passante hallmark signifying it is sterling silver.

Here is a close up on the fine detail of the silver, it is a rope like design and has inter connected balls by a zig zag pattern.

Another thing i noticed but i am unsure about is a strange scratching by hand of H/X/X , i would love peoples thoughts on this.

Here is the back of the belt, the pins that would connect to the belt are made from steel, this is because silver would be to weak for this task but it does not detract from the beauty of this item. In total it contains about an Oz of silver but it is worth so much more as it is a piece of art, history and a soulful piece.

I would say this was probably worn by a wealthy Gentleman due to its size and quality of workmanship.