Silver Lid with Compartment for Stamps

Design & Materials

• The Glass Base: The inkwell features a substantial, square glass base. The bottom and lower portions are heavily cut with a deep, geometric hobnail or pyramidal pattern.
• The Sterling Silver Lid: Resting atop the glass collar is an ornate, dome-shaped repoussé sterling silver lid. The silver is densely worked with flowing Victorian scrollwork, foliate motifs, and a gadrooned lower border, capped by a smooth central cartouche on the top.

The Dual-Hinged Mechanism & Rarity

What elevates this piece is its ingenious dual-compartment design. Rather than opening to a single well, it features two separate hinged mechanisms:

1. The Stamp Compartment: A small tab allows the very top dome of the silver cap to swing open independently. This reveals a shallow, rectangular gilded compartment explicitly designed to hold postage stamps.
2. The Ink Reservoir: The entire silver assembly is also hinged at the base. When unlatched from the lower collar, it flips completely back to expose the wide mouth of the glass ink reservoir.

Hallmarks & Authentication

The silver is fully hallmarked, providing excellent provenance for the piece. The primary hallmarks are struck cleanly on the exterior collar:

• Maker’s Mark: AWP for the renowned Birmingham silversmith Arthur Willmore Pennington.
• Assay Office: The anchor mark for Birmingham.
• Purity Mark: The Lion Passant certifying sterling silver purity.
• Date Letter: The lowercase “s” corresponds to the year 1892.

To ensure authenticity across all components, matching partial hallmarks are struck on the interior of the main lid and inside the stamp compartment lid, proving that all pieces of this intricate mechanism have remained original and intact to one another.