The city of Cork never had a date letter. Prior to 1715 the city arms, a ship in full sail between two castles, was used together with the maker’s mark, which latter embodied some heraldic device. Later the only mark used at Cork was the maker’s initials and the word STERLING, or the word DOLLAR; this took the place of the town mark. The official guide to the Irish metal work at the Dublin Museum, to which we are indebted for much information, states that “Immense quantities of silver were manufactured in Cork during the eighteenth century, but comparatively little remains at the present day, most of it having been melted down as the fashions changed.” [Illustration: CENTREPIECE. DUBLIN, 1740. Maker, Robert Calderwood. (The design of a Potato Ring by same maker is shown on cover of this volume.) (_At the Metropolitan Museum, New York._)] The word “dollar” alludes to the silver that was used for plate, much of it being obtained from Spanish dollars. This is parallel to the usage on the coinage. The word “Portobello” is found on English silver coined about the year 1739 from silver taken at Portobello by Admiral Vernon; and the word “Lima” on George II gold coins, signifying that they were from bullion captured from the Spaniards at that place. Anne’s guineas, of 1703, have the word “Vigo,” relating to Sir George Rooke’s captures. At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, silver coins were so scarce that Spanish dollars were made legal tender with the head of George III stamped on them. In the early nineteenth century the Dublin marks appear added to the Cork mark STERLING. The following are among some of the Cork marks found: STERLING and maker’s mark, C. T. (Carden Terry) about 1780. STERLING and maker’s mark C T I W (Carden Terry and John Williams), about 1800. And there is Robert Goble, 1694, a piece of whose delightful work we illustrate with marks; the Cork mace at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a specimen of beautiful craftsmanship, is marked with the Cork castle and ship, and the letters R. G. There is also Jonathan Buck, 1764, and a fine cream-jug of his superb work is illustrated (p. 339). Besides Dublin and Cork there were other places at which silver was assayed and marked: at Limerick, in the seventeenth century, with the mark of the _fleur-de-lis_; Youghal in the seventeenth century, with the town mark of a single-masted ship. In 1783 a small village near Waterford, termed New Geneva, owing to a company of Geneva watch-makers having settled there, had an assay office for a few years, mainly for watch-cases. The harp was used in their mark. Clonmel, Waterford, Mullinger, Kinsale, Kilkenny, and Drogheda all made plate which was assayed at Dublin. The oldest piece of Irish hall-marked plate now existing is a flagon in Trinity College, Dublin, bearing the Dublin hall-mark for 1638.