With these tongs, the maker's mark is again clearly over-struck. Also from the overall style of these tongs, they would be Hester Bateman's work. The mark underneath is almost certainly Hester Bateman's mark. The date of these tongs is slightly earlier than the others, there being no duty mark hence they must be dated prior to 1st December 1784. what is also much more difficult with these tongs is identifying the mark. I have tentatively suggested John Lambe but this is in fact not very likely. From an examination of 60+ pairs of John Lambe tongs, this is the only pair that appear to be over-struck. John Lambe was a fairly prolific maker of sugar tongs so it would be quite unlikely that he would need to buy from Hester Bateman.

If the mark is not that of John Lambe, then it could well be "TL". This then becomes even more interesting as the shape of the punch is very oval. This would then make it even more likely that the "TL" tongs identified on the web-site is more likely to be that of Thomas Lovidge - the punch is much more like his registered oval shaped punch.