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Sskk Mark On Table Knife Blade, Who Made It?


lizcutlery

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Need help identifying the maker using this mark (stamp) SSKK on stainless steel blades on silver-plated handle table knives.

Exhaustive online searches on SSKK in several countries have only produced erroneous results not connected to the item, incl. a Finnish book club, a Swedish drinking society, a Slovak school, a Swedish sport fishing association, a LEGO silver promotional item, and more non-related. A "fast answers" web site states that SSKK is a "Finish(sic) company" but without any other info. I think it's only spreading the Finnish book club acronym info. Some brass vases for sale were shown to bear the same SSKK stamp. If they are connected to the maker of the stainless steel knife blades is unknown as their mark ID is not confirmed by the sellers.

Because I own another set of silver-plate table cutlery in the very same handle pattern that appears to have been made in Sheffield, with only E.P.N.S. as backstamp on all the silver-plated pieces, I suspect that the supplier of the knife blades may also be in the Sheffield area. The table knives in my earlier set are only stamped STAINLESS STEEL, nothing else, however.

Any identification of the maker using the SSKK stamp with the stickfigure, whether a Sheffield manufacture or not, or a pointer in the right direction, would be most gratefully accepted.

Thanks in advance for any help!

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A tangled web I think. Try looking at Atlas Group Holdings of Australia, started in Canada 1918, moved into Australia 1939 and had numerous subsidiary companies including Stainless Steel KK (Nippon Steel Corp).

But we don't talk about things like that here! (joke)

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Thank you so very much, dear Sheffield History Pro! This is a big help. I never thought to look to Japan. The handle pattern is a variation on LOUIS XV, a popular cutlery design for over a hundred years. Just about every silver cutlery/flatware manufacturer sports one version or another of this pattern. The LOUIS XV pattern on THIS particular cutlery service is pictured here.

However, I do know that the blades and ferrules most often came from other sources. So it wouldn't surprise me if an English, even a SHEFFIELD maker of cutlery used a foreign source for the stainless blades. Who actually assembled the complete cutlery is still a mystery since EPNS doesn't tell me anything except that it is made of Electro Plate Nickel Silver.

Per information I have received from other sources than this website, I have been led to understand that there is no lmanufacture of SILVER cutlery, sterling or plated, in Sheffield (or the area) any more?

Can you verify if this is true? If so, it's really very sad, since Sheffield cutlery has been renowned all over the world for a couple of hundred years at least.

Thanks again. When I find out who made this set, I'll try to follow up with a post!

louisxvepnspatx.jpg

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I doubt it would be marked with an indication of being "Sterling Silver" when, clearly, it is marked "Stainless Steel".

In the 1960s the Board of Trade sent enquiries to every Sheffield rolling mill company asking if they could quote for a range of stainless steel cutlery sections which the cutlery manufacturers were asking permission to import from France. As far as I know they received permission!

I am not sure about there being no Sheffield manufacturers left...Both Inkerman Silver and Chimo Group( a Canadian Inuit word) advertise having manufacturing plant in Sheffield and the former are members of the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce...to whom I suggest you contact, as well as the Cutlers Company in Hallamshire, for an authoritative answer!

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Its the blade that's S/S the handle and the spoon and fork are either e.p.n.s or Sterling which I doubt. I have never seen Louis xv pattern made in stainless.

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I doubt it would be marked with an indication of being "Sterling Silver" when, clearly, it is marked "Stainless Steel".

In the 1960s the Board of Trade sent enquiries to every Sheffield rolling mill company asking if they could quote for a range of stainless steel cutlery sections which the cutlery manufacturers were asking permission to import from France. As far as I know they received permission!

I am not sure about there being no Sheffield manufacturers left...Both Inkerman Silver and Chimo Group( a Canadian Inuit word) advertise having manufacturing plant in Sheffield and the former are members of the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce...to whom I suggest you contact, as well as the Cutlers Company in Hallamshire, for an authoritative answer!

Everybody that worked in the Cutlery trade never called their place of work " a plant" it was always " the firm" just a little quirk we all had.

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Thanks to all who have responded! To Tozzin: With my mention of "a LEGO promotional item" I was referring to KRANA-KAL, a sterling silver trinket LEGO (company) has used for promotional purposes. Many images of this quasi skull-like item can be found in any Net image search. It's as far from my 'SSKK' mark as one can get, I'm afraid. I am not sure of the origin of the word combination of krana and kal but, myself a Swede by birth, I suspect it might mean something like bald skull in Danish (the LEGO country). With a little imagination the item could be seen as a small skull.

But that is far out in left field for the SSKK mark with the stick figure. I visited Japan, i.e. Google there online, to find out more about Atlas Group Holdings, Nippon Steel, etc.

Edmund, the first responder to my post, is right, it's a tangled web, indeed! Company after company got swallowed up over time and the origins are pretty soon lost. Furthermore, there seems to be some confusion as to whether the acronym was originally SKK or SSK even, both were apparently used but not necessarily by the same company or companies after ownership transitions. SSKK appears to have been used on some items but other, more substantial products like steel railings (only one example), were reported made by a company using only three of the letters.

If I were to theorize here, based on some rudimentary knowledge of how many cutlery factories (plants, companies, manufactures, "firms" etc.) have functioned in the past, the various components in finished cutlery came from many sources.

Assembled in finishing factories (plants, etc. etc.), the blades were brought in from one maker, often from overseas. From the U.S., or Canada, the Orient, to Britain or vice versa, f.ex.

U.S. cutlery makers often show MADE IN SHEFFIELD, ENGLAND on the blades whereas the handles were made in the U.S. The plated (or sterling) components arrived from other sources, also often from other countries. This is true of most products assembled from many parts, such as jewelry, automobiles, ships, electric appliances, etc. The origin of almost anything manufactured is never just the country that stamped MADE IN ** on it, it's a veritable United Nations of origin countries.

I digress for having something to add I guess as I am still no closer to identifying the mark with the little stick figure topping the SSKK stamp on my LOUIS XV "style" EPNS flatware/cutlery. But it doesn't matter. Someone who already owns this pattern hopefully will recognize it and stock up from my website. It has happened before with so called "rare" marks. I've discovered that they're only "rare" until the next dozen or so shows up online! ;-)

Thanks again, gracious responders!

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