In my previous article in ASCAS about Sandrik, due to wrong information taken from the Slovak website, I made some mistakes, which I am correcting now. In two words, this information ignored completely the Hungarian origin of this company. Actually, this silver production factory ("ezüstárúgyár" in Hungarian) was built in the village of Alsó-Hámor, situated in the Kingdom of Hungary, part of Austria-Hungary, and was operating through the Hungarian capital. The name of this Hungarian company was slightly different, not "Sandrik" but "Szandrik", though both names phonetically sound similar as the combination of the two letters "SZ" in Hungarian language corresponds to an "S" in Slovak language.

After 1918 this place was included into the Czechoslovakian state and was renamed Dolne Hámre and later became part of the town Hodruša-Hámre in Czechoslovakia. Simultaneously, this firm became Czechoslovakian and changed its name to "Sandrik". It was in operation until the World War II. In 1993 Czechoslovakia was split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and only in 1994 Sandrik was reopened as a Slovak firm. Now I will present a slightly corrected version of the Szandrik/Sandrik company history.

In 1752 the Dutch aristocrat Jan Joseph Geramb arrived in Austria-Hungary to organise the mining business in which he was very successful. At the end of the 18th century he founded the Geramb Mining Union (Geramb Bergwerk Union or GBU in German), which was the strongest and most profitable company in the whole Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In the middle of the 19th century GBU employed 1400 people and apart from the mining of common metals (copper, lead, zinc), at the time of the highest prosperity, the company annually extracted on average 28.3 kg of gold and 3,194 kg of silver. The prosperity of GBU lasted until the end of the 19th century.

Unfortunately, after the discovery of rich silver deposits in South Africa and America, the world price of 1 kg decreased by half. The deep mining used in the GBU didn’t allow the extraction of the metal for a lower price. The mines and GBU were about to become bankrupt. The businessman Rytier Robert von Berks, a representative of GBU, decided to transform the extracted metals into end products. In 1895 he founded a factory for the processing of silver in Alsó-Hámor. He chose the land, which belonged to Janos Szandrik. The company was given his name after the land it had been built on. Berks chose as a graphic trade mark the six-petal rose, which was adopted from the Geramb coat of arms. According to the Berks project, the factory was supposed to process 10,000 kg of silver per year.

In 1899, the designer and graduate of the Vienna Craft School, Jan Peterka (1871-1938), started to work at Szandrik. According to the conditions of the Budapest city government for providing a financial loan, the factory was supposed to take part in the World exhibition in Paris in 1900 with its own designed products. Young Peterka fulfilled his task so successfully that the objects designed by him were awarded a gold medal. For that success, the 29 year-old Peterka was put in charge of the factory. He stayed in this position until 1929. The factory was active until World War II (from 1918 under the Sandrik name). After World War II this company was nationalized and fused with the Czechoslovakian firm Bibus.

In accordance with the two periods of this firm’s activity, Hungarian and Czechoslovakian, we can divide all the marks for silver-plated items into two groups. The first group contains the name of the firm in Hungarian – "SZANDRIK" and two letters "A" and "E", which I suppose means "Alpakka Ezüst", i.e. "Alpacca Silber" in German or "Alpaca Silver" in English. The second group contains the name of the firm in Czech/Slovak – "SANDRIK" and two letters, "A" and "S", which I suppose means "Alpaka Stríbro" in Czech or "Alpaka Striebro" in Slovak, i.e. again "Alpacca Silber". It should be added that the name of the animal alpaca is Alpakka in Hungarian and Alpaka in Czech/Slovak. For one relatively rare mark, the German version of this name, "Alpacca", was also used.

Below the revised list of the Szandrik/Sandrik marks, including my latest findings, follows.

N°	MARK	COMMENT
1		The first Szandrik mark consists of the simple one-word inscription SZANDRIK, sometimes accompanied by the model number. The length of the word SZANDRIK varies between 5.6 and 7.0 mm, the ratio of the length of SZANDRIK word to its height is 5.6.
2		The second Szandrik mark consists of the inscription SZANDRIK, accompanied by two letters, "A" and "E", which is an abbreviation for Hungarian "Alpakka Ezüst", that means silver-plated alpaca. The length of the word SZANDRIK is 9.4 mm, while the ratio of the length of SZANDRIK word to its height is 5.0.
3		The third and most common Szandrik mark consists of the previous inscription SZANDRIK AE, placed inside a circle together with a six-petal rose. Often it is accompanied by the model number and/or the volume mark (if any). The diameter of the circle varies between 3.4 and 3.9 mm.
4		The last Szandrik mark consists of the inscription SZANDRIK AE, placed inside a rhombus together with a six-petal rose. By analogy with the mark used at the same time by the famous Arthur Krupp metalware factory in Berndorf, Austria-Hungary, it should be related to a low-quality silver plate. The size of the rhombus varies between 3.3 mm x 3.7 mm and 3.7 mm x 4.0 mm.

N°	MARK	COMMENT
5		The most common Sandrik mark, which was derived from the Szandrik mark No.3 by changing the inscription SZANDRIK AE for a new one, SANDRIK AS. The two letters, "A" and "S", mean "Alpaka Stríbro" in Czech or "Alpaka Striebro" in Slovak (again silver-plated alpaca in English). This mark is often accompanied by the model number and/or the volume mark (if any). Note that there are some variations in size and form of the six-petal rose inside the circle. The diameter of the circle is between 3.2 and 3.9 mm.
6		The next Sandrik mark again was derived from similar Szandrik mark No.4. Again it refers to a low-quality silver plate. The size of the rhombus varies between 4.5 mm x 4.5 mm and 5.1 mm x 5.1 mm.
7		The original Sandrik mark, which was created probably to mark the products made for export. This explains the use of German word ALPACCA. The size of the oval is 4.3 mm x 5.4 mm.
8		The next original Sandrik mark was invented in the thirties to mark the flatware products and trays. The mark size is 3.4 mm (height) x 4.7 mm (base).

LITERATURE
1. David N. Nikogosyan, Marks of European Silver Plate: I. Sandrik, Slovakia, http://www.ascasonline.org/windowOTTOB53.html

2. Súkromná stredná odborná škola umeleckoremeselná Hodruša-Hámre (Private secondary crafts school in Hodruša-Hámre), http://www.ssushh.sk/sou/sou_index.php?menu=s_skola&content=sou_historia, in Slovak.

3. Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk and Claudia Kanowski: Modern Art of Metallwork (Berlin: Bröhan Museum, 2001), pp. 552, 555.

The author is grateful to his wife Danielle for her invaluable help with Hungarian translations.