F
ound this metal detecting is it possible to get a ID told it may be a coin i don’t think it is thanks
ound this metal detecting is it possible to get a ID told it may be a coin i don’t think it is thanks
I have no idea what the object is (maybe a button?), but it appears to have the sterling mark for London, 1883:
https://www.silvermakersmarks.co.uk/Dates/London/Date%20Letters%20H.html
And the L-B might be Louis Blumfeld:
https://www.silvermakersmarks.co.uk/Makers/London-LA-LC.html#LB
Could you post photo of the opposite side please, possible Brooch !!! 
Indeed, the hallmarks would be on the back - the front might provide some enlightenment. Or not. 
The fact that it has only a partial hallmark (no lion passant or duty mark) shows that it is/was part of a larger piece, so brooch is unlikely. It’s not a coin, which would not be hallmarked.
It’s a cover for a smoking briar pipe to retain the tobacco in the bowl when the pipe is being employed outside.
At some point the attachment has been trimmed off, probably when the pipe and the silver lid parted company.
In 1847, Adolph Frankau arrived in London and saw opportunities in the tobacco market. He created the company Adolph Frankau and Co and became an importer of meerschaum pipes and other supplies.
He also took on a 14-year-old-boy, Louis Blumfeld.
The business thrived until the death of Adolph Frankau in 1856. His widow prepared to sell the company, but Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), author of “Hero and worship of the heroes” advised her not to sell, but to entrust the future of the company to the the young Louis Blumfeld, then 18 years old. Carlyle had a very high opinion of Louis for his sense of responsibility for the business, his enthusiasm and his inexhaustible energy.
Louis Blumfeld quickly developed an important international trade, with particular success in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and Europe, particularly in Switzerland and Denmark.
A branch also opened in New York but the marketing strategy focused mainly on the countries of the British Empire.
Shortly before 1914, the need for manufacturing in London became pressing, and by the turn of the century A. Frankau and Co had a warehouse and offices in Queen Victoria Street and an export department in Upper Thames Street. A factory opened in 1898.
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Adolph_Frankau_and_Co
Christopher R W Wilson
Guildhall Antiques Toronto
2 Likes
At the risk of becoming slightly tendentious or pursuing matters so obscure as to lose the attention of the entire of those still generous enough with their time to bear with these meanderings through tobaccanalia I took my inquiries a little further.
But industry and I will admit my own modest proprietorship of a still functioning tobacco plantation on the northern slopes of Lake Erie triggered and drove the curiosity.
First what became of the company and the rather well known triple B brand in a diamond which started out to mean Blumfeld’s Best Briar and became Britain’s Best Briar later also associated with Dunhills.
Secondly the cover itself, to what exactly was it attached and by what artifice and who would have used it? Oh and why are there so few examples that its very existence challenged all of us on this very knowledgeable forum.
So to attend to these matters in reverse order: silver is a remarkably bad choice for a lid or grate to be placed over hot smouldering leaves. It is not only a massively excellent conductor of electrical impulses but also responds more or less instantly to change in external temperature. So apply heat from underneath and the entire grate will heat and char whatever it comes in contact with if flammable.
Which goes to why so few and probably why not attached to the pipe with which it started life.
After the Great War, so called not because of the great number of lives it snuffed but to encourage recruits to its great dynastic cause, pipes fell out of fashion with the males escorting the modern Gibson Girl and American cigarets the fashion.
Blumfeld’s enterprise was sold to Openheimers which in turn contracted to Dunhills and pretty soon remained simply as a supplier of parts.
The tobacco industry discovered it was possible to sell more tobacco of a lower brand and at a better price in small paper tubes and it continues to do so today.
Pipe smokers, whether using modelled or carved clay or soft stone became curiosities and briar the sole province of stodgy, rather dependable gents and of no interest to the 52% of the market place prone to the lure of tobacco, the ladies.
Now as to the cover itself and exactly to what and how it attached. The silver marks, unlike most trade marks or guild which are hidden were designed to be seen, to assure the buyer he was part of a privileged group with a superior pipe attachment. His pipe will have had a silver or even gold band around it where the mouth piece fitted into the slot of the briar through which smoke could be drawn into the lungs.
It would have attached either by a spring loaded bar on top with clips underneath or by the attachment of two pegs or clips fitting inside the upper lip of the bowl or by hinge attached to a collar surrounding the top of the pipe. The latter would be most likely given what the picture shows of the grate remnants.
And for whom? Anybody who wanted to smoke on the job and was worried about stray smouldering particles. Sailors are an obvious target, but those working the land with hay or grain barns equally in need.
Looking at the various still extant grades and calibres of Triple B briar pipe, I cannot now tell exactly what it what designed for but the temptation to encourage you to submit it to the hand of a modern silversmith and rebuild it for new or possibly even vintage pipe is overwhelming.
CRWW