Noel Turner and Eileen Woodhead both indicate in their books that Bristol Plate Co. is a backstamp of Pairpoint Mfg. Following image from Turner’s book:
I hold both researchers in high esteem and normally I wouldn’t question their findings. But I recently received an inquiry regarding the Humbolt pattern. I have a sugar shell in this pattern marked “Sterling Plate < B >”. The following screen shot came from my blog post “Some 19th Century Flatware Patterns”:
You’ll see Humbolt is the last pattern on this page.
It was quite a few years ago that I identified this pattern name as Humbolt and I believe my source of identification came from Davis and Diebel’s book “Silver Plated Flatware Patterns”:
The Humbolt pattern is shown under Sterling Plate < B >.
The inquiry I recently received was regarding this Humbolt pattern however the backstamp was not Sterling Plate < B > but Bristol Plate Co. I looked at the patterns under Bristol Plate in the Davis and Deibel book.
There was no Humbolt there but there was a pattern that resembled Persian, called Bristol Four by Davis and Deibel. They also said that “information regarding this imprint (Bristol Plate Co.) is unavailable.”
I had done research on the Persian pattern a while back. Reviewing earlier posts, I found that Charles D. Hall had patented this pattern in 1870. And guess who they assigned it to? Bristol Brass! Following is a page from my post ” Persian versus Jewell”.
So Humbolt has been found with both Sterling Plate < B > and Bristol Plate Co. backstamps. Sterling Plate < B > is an acknowledged Bristol Brass backstamp but Bristol Plate is said to be a Pairpoint backstamp. However I had my doubts. Especially because now I knew that the Persian pattern assigned to Bristol Brass has been found with a Bristol Plate Co. mark.
Also the 1894 Pairpoint catalog reprint that I have does not mention Bristol Plate Co. as being one of their marks.
If anyone has evidence that Bristol Plate Co. Is truly a Pairpoint mark, I’d be happy to hear from you.
queenofsienna 