Does Anyone Recognise who made this food warmer?



I know this is a really tricky one… but does anyone recognise who made this? I assume it’s an early form of bain-marie food warmer?

I assume the top row of the makers stamp showing ‘V E P…’ indicates it’s Electroplated?

The actual makers mark, below this, appears to be 4 letters within individual shields, followed by a larger shield around a Gothic ‘A’… any ideas or hunches?? If love to know more, anything more, about this interesting item??

I suspect that the “V E P …” bit is actually the manufacturer’s identification and that the rubbed bit (all of which may be in matching shields) is “E P N S A1”. But I couldn’t get anywhere with that either.

Phil

Many thanks Phil… now you have suggested it’s the other way around, I can see the base of each of those erased Capital Letters do look like an E P N…

So now I’ve got the mystery of which silversmiths initials were: ‘V.E.P something’?