What's the rarest? Silver from Scottish Provincial towns.

Antique Scottish Provincial silver is one of the most interesting and confusing areas of silver collecting. There were numerous towns that were producing silver in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There were no regulations governing these towns, so each town (or silversmith) came up with their own marks. These were often related to town symbols or coat of arms.

It is often the question of rarity that wildly affects the value for these pieces of silver. Below is a table of suggested rarity:

Scarce	Rare	Very Rare
Aberdeen	Arbroath	Cupar
Dumfries	Ballater	Ellon
Dundee	Banff	Fochabers
Glasgow (pre-Assay office)	Canongate	Forres
Inverness	Elgin	Leith
Perth	Greenock	Nairn
	Iona	Peterhead
	Montrose	St. Andrews
	Paisley	Stonehaven
		Tain
		Wick

This list is published by antiquesilverspoons.co.uk and is based on the research of Richard Turner (who's book, A Directory of Scottish Provincial Silversmiths and Their Marks, is the authority reference on these towns and their makers). 

I have found Aberdeen is by far the most common to turn up (especially the work of William Jamieson!). The towns of Iona and Ballater are both modern producers (late nineteenth/early twentieth century). And the other 'Scarce' towns also turn up somewhat regularly. 

Check out my website for examples of silver from some of the towns listed above.