Silver maker
Reed & Barton marks
The firm traces back to Isaac Babbitt's Britannia-metal works in Taunton, founded as Babbitt & Crossman in 1824.
- Active
- 1824–2015
- Based in
- Taunton, Massachusetts, United States
- Marks listed
- 8
- Typical pieces
- flatware, holloware, Britannia ware, pewter
The marks, by date
Each mark’s wording is written out as a transcription: the words and line breaks, not a picture of the mark. Where a source describes a mark instead of quoting it, the description is shown in italics.
Sterling trademark: a bird/eagle, a shield enclosing R, and a lion, each in a cartouche. 925-1000 describes versions as 'Bird, R, Lion' and 'Eagle, R, Lion'.
Name mark in an oval or rounded cartouche.
Holloware date symbols; each year had a small pictorial symbol.
Silverplate mark with a globe device.
Silverplate on nickel silver; the letters E, P, N, S sit in separate shields.
Silverplate.
Silverplate flatware quality mark.
History
Henry G. Reed and Charles E. Barton took over the struggling business and gave it their names, moving from Britannia ware into silverplate and later sterling. The company stayed in the Reed family, absorbed Dominick & Haff in 1928, filed for bankruptcy in 2015, and its operating assets were bought by Lenox that year.
Dating clues
- Reed & Barton used year symbols on holloware from 1928; 925-1000 says the practice continued through 1957.
- silvercollection.it notes the date symbols were used on both sterling and silverplate, and that from 1945 a special symbol (a circled C with an A) marked silverplate on a copper-alloy base.
- Marks with EPNS, A1, Silver Soldered or 'plated by' wording are silverplate, not sterling.
Other names on the marks
Babbitt & Crossman
Where sources disagree: 925-1000's American marks page dates the Reed & Barton name from about 1840 while its date-code page and Wikipedia give 1824 (the Babbitt & Crossman founding). One silvercollection.it guide gives the date-symbol span as 1928–1942, but its dedicated page and 925-1000 both run it to 1957; we use 1928–1957.
Sources
- Reed & Barton Date Code Marks – 925-1000.com (Online Encyclopedia of Silver Marks)
- American Silver Marks R – 925-1000.com (Online Encyclopedia of Silver Marks)
- Silverplate Marks R – 925-1000.com (Online Encyclopedia of Silver Marks)
- Reed & Barton: history, marks and date symbols – silvercollection.it
- Reed & Barton – Wikipedia
Marks help identify a maker and a date range, but they can’t prove a piece is genuine. Reproductions and later reissues can carry old marks. This entry isn’t an appraisal.