The salver was catalogued from the hallmarks as being made by William Barrett II in London in 1796 and from the inscription as presented to a captain of the ship by shareholders in the holding company in Scotland in 1849.
The ship spent its last year in West Australian waters and features in Aboriginal mythology via rock art.
Andrew Spicer, Bonham head of jewellery and silver North West England says the salver was withdrawn as it technically contravened the hallmarking act, it had started out life as a Georgian salver and then had Victorian feet added to it.
“This meant it could not be offered for public auction,” he says. There is still interest from the Western Australia Museum where the engine from the Xantho is displayed," he says..
According to the Goldsmiths Company which overseas the regulations governing the sale of gold and silver in the UK hallmarking dates back to 1300 and represents the oldest form of consumer protection in the United Kingdom.
“The Hallmarking Act 1973 (and subsequent amendments) requires that all items sold in the United Kingdom and described as being made from gold, silver, platinum or palladium must have a legally recognised hallmark.
"The hallmark is applied by regulated assay offices, which are independent of the trade and is necessary because the cost of the metal as a percentage cost of a finished article is invariably higher than for other fabricated products and there is therefore a temptation for unscrupulous dealers to cheat their customers by attempting to pass off base metals or metals with a low precious metal content as precious metals", the company says.
There is no suggestion that this is the situation in regards to the salver but a new hallmark may need to be added before the salver can be sold and it is understood the hallmark cannot be backdated.
Objects with multiple hallmarks do turn up, many of the tankards with added lips to turn them into pouring vessels are perhaps the most common .
Maintaining the hallmarking standards of the Goldsmiths' Company was a bone of contention with the European Union with Britain entered it.
The UK kept its hallmarking regulations as defined by the company but British silver not appropriately hallmarked can only be readily sold outside the UK.
The Company even is understood to have powers to order the destruction of inappropriately advertised silver submitted for its approval.
This is unlikely to be considered for the Xantho salver because its value lies in its inscription which links it to a ship which had an after-life in Australia.
It reads “To, John Smith Esquire, for his active and successful exertions, in promoting the extension of the, Anstruther and Leith Steam Shipping Company, and establishing a superior communication betwixt these ports, by means of the steam ship "Xantho", from, a number of the shareholders, and other connected with the East of Fife, who most cordially present this, and the accompanying tea service, to mark their grateful sense, of the benefits experienced by them, and the whole district, 1849"
The Xantho was excavated by the Fremantle-housed Western Australian Maritime Museum's curator of archaeology, Michael McCarthy who confirms the museum's interest in acquiring the piece.
The Xantho was built in 1848 as a paddle steamer by the Denny Shipbuilding Company, used by the Anstruther and Leith Steamship Company for crossings of the Firth of Forth between Leith and Aberdour.
In 1871 the ship was purchased by Charles Edward Broadhurst, an entrepreneur involved in colonial ventures in north-west Australia.
Xantho was brought to Western Australia via the Suez Canal and the Straits Settlements for use by Broadhurst as a transport and mother vessel for pearling operations and as a tramp steamer. In that role she became Western Australia's first coastal steamship.
Notes published by the West Australian Museum suggest, the ship “impacted both visually and socially on indigenous groups like the Jaburrara, Martuthunira, and Ngarluma people, who lived in the hinterland of Nickol Bay.
"Although no European illustrations of the ship exist, there are several examples of Aboriginal rock carvings of it at Inthanoona Station inland from Cossack identified as the ship, the SS Xantho (Xantho is Greek for yellow.).
"Rock art at Walga Rock is also believed to depict the vessel.
"Xantho also transported a number of northwest Aboriginal men from the Aboriginal prison at Rottnest Island back to their home near Cossack and Roebourne.
"In November 1879, whilst travelling down from the pearling grounds to Fremantle Xantho she was overloaded with lead ore, her hull badly corroded and its deck planking opened by the tropical sun, she sank.
In April 1985, the engine was removed from the wreck site and restored, being the only known example of its type and it was found to have been running backwards to drive the ship forward.
It is now in the WA Museum which might well consider is where the salver clearly deserves a home.
The scrolled rococo feet appear to be the problem, presumably added to make it a more useful piece of silver.