AVIGNON [?], SECOND HALF OF THE XVIIIth CENTURY Six table knives with forged silver (950) handles, with two flats stretched over the profiles, and with stings at the pommel, engraved with complex coats of arms under a marquis crown. Oval butt with button. Steel blades: two with the "lobster" mark and four with the "stemmed glass" mark. On the handles: Goldsmith's hallmark: "M.F", inscribed twice on each ferrule. Possibly the Reconnaissance mark [A crowned with dot below] of AVIGNON [?], from the second half of the 18th century, with the special status of a foreign city in the Kingdom. Gross weight: 771 g. - Length: 25.8 to 26.5 cm. Scratches and a few knocks; some blades shortened. According to Claude Gérard CASSAN, "Les orfèvres d'Avignon et du Comtat Venaissin" (Imp. Rosay, Vincennes, 1984, p. 9), [...] ''goldsmith's items made in the 17th and 18th centuries [in Avignon] bear the goldsmith's hallmark (struck twice, indicating that the silver is of the highest grade) and a hallmark with the letter A, usually crowned''. This seems to correspond to the marks found on our knives.