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Whilst I was researching the topics of silver British Placename thimbles and Thimbles with Slogans, I noticed a smaller grouping of silver thimbles with adverts and so my quest for information about Silver advertising thimbles began.
Previously I thought that general products being advertised on thimbles were in the majority, with a few silver thimbles advertising jewellers. Exactly the opposite is true. The jewellers thimbles are the most prolific, with 98% being for English jewellers. At the beginning of the 20th century James Walker a London jeweller, began to give a silver thimble to couples who purchased a wedding ring: these were marked with James Walker wishes you luck. The most commonly seen jewellers' advertising thimble is for James Walker the London Jeweller.
Henry Griffith & Sons [HG&S] of Birmingham are the primary makers of the English silver advertising thimbles, tho you will notice that there are other maker's marks. Where I have specified no makers' marks, the maker is HG&S. The other makers' thimbles would have been made by HG&S, but the wholesalers registered maker's mark was used instead. A dead giveaway is that the words 'The Spa' appear on the band (thimbles only made by Griffith) or when the size mark is between 13 and 18. Griffith was the only English thimble maker to have his thimble sizes corresponding to the millimetre diameter. So even tho the thimbles have the maker's mark as JWLtd, N.G. or N.G. Co. these would have been made by Henry Griffith & Sons, using the Chester assay office, where the JWLtd mark was registered. According to Holmes there was a close association between the firms of Griffith and James Walker. The N.G. mark was registered in Birmingham in 1916 and this is for Northern Goldsmiths Company.
James Fenton, another Birmingham thimble maker, made no thimbles for English jewellers but there are two examples of his made for Australian jewellers. I wonder if the Hester Clarke jewellers thimbles from 1976 were also a giveaway?
The general products as advertisements generally pre-date the jewellers' ones. I have included information from Zalkin or Holmes about how one qualified for some of these free thimbles. I have only found one example of an US jeweller. It is most gratifying to notice that a few of the jewellers or the general products being advertised are still in business. If they were offering a free silver thimble back in the 1900-1920s, then they still deserve to be in business in the 21st century!! Silver advertising thimbles were at the top end of the range with the bulk of giveaways being made of aluminium and plastic. My only source for silver advertising thimbles made in the United States is Gay Ann Rogers. Do you know of any other USA silver adverts on thimbles? They certainly pre-date most of their English counterparts.
There is a small niche collection within the advertising thimbles theme - those with ship or ocean liner silver thimbles. The Pacific & Oriental [P&O] Shipping Line had five liners on the route between England and Australia in the first half of the twentieth century and there were silver thimbles made by Henry Griffith & Sons lettered in relief with the name of the ship.It was the era of mass migration from Europe to Australia. These are much later than his placename and jewellers advertising thimbles, being made post World War II until he closed his business in 1956. The sixth ship thimble illustrated, was probably made in Germany.
The lettering on advertising jewellers thimbles is usually small, as there are such long names and/or addresses to fit around the thimble band. The shorter the name the larger the print. The lettering is in relief and in upppercase, often over a striated ground on the English thimbles.
I have ignored any of the punctuation used in the advertisements.
These thimbles are arranged alphabetically by the first word of the advertisement, which may be the jeweller's initial.
Some of the detail or lettering is so fine or feint, that you should click on the photo for a clearer picture.
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