A lovely antique Victorian era silver plated cup, covered in beautiful engraving with figural rifles at the front, awarded for a shooting competition. The engraving reads:
Martin Challenge Trophy
Winchester Gun Club
of Jordan Station
by
F. Martin
Jan 18th 1907
There is no “Winchester Gun Club of Jordan Station” currently operating, no sign of an old club comes up in an Internet search or appears in old newspaper records, so I believe this was probably a temporary gun club at a military installation/station. In amazing condition, no dents or damage, just a slight bump to the very tip of one of the rifles. The engraving is still crisp and easily read. It has a deep, dark layer of tarnished to the silver, I did not attempt to polish it as you cannot get that patina back once you polish it away. At the moment, it is a fairly even, deep gun metal grey/black, but it would certainly polish up quite a bit if desired, with some small spots of wear to the silver plating hidden underneath all that tarnish.
Measures approximately 6.5” tall