These are a pair of flared and bright cut engraved tongs. The engraving is lovely and sharp with a delightful veined pattern on the bowls. In style these tongs are fairly narrow compared with other George Ferris tongs. There appears to be no journeyman's mark on these tongs, but it may have worn off. Notice there seems to have been a slight mis-punch from the assay office under the duty mark - or perhaps this was the journeyman's mark being overstruck? The tongs have the date letter for 1811/12 and given that George Ferris did not send any work for assay prior to 20th March that year, they must be dated between 20th March and 7th August 1812.