A Mystery!

First off, we had a great weekend!  I'm trying now to clean the house, because we did nothing useful the entire time.  We went out for dinner, and we went to see The King's Speech (which was awesome) and we basically goofed off the rest of the time.  Sean played video games, and I made some more art for purposes yet to be disclosed.  Everything went well with Brianna at my parent's house, they even got to sleep!  We went early to pick her up, and we ended up staying there for supper yesterday.  Somehow we got to talking about something.  I have no idea what it was, I can't remember.  But the end product was my Dad showing me what he thought was a Pioneer fork and knife set, from which the knife was missing.  It had been handed down my his Uncle Paul, who had been given it by his parents.  See?

So we were all looking at it, and my Mom noticed lettering on the case!  We thought it said Ann at first, then we realized it was ANNO, year, and there were numbers after it!  So, we know how old the case is at least.  Anyone want to guess what the year on the case was?

No takers?

1773. 

Yeah, seriously.  The leather case was made before America was a country.  Then, we start noticing more letters underneath the ANNO 1773, and then more on the cap of the case, and then more on the other side of the case!  We *think* we've figured out part of it, some reference to a Latin version of the bible that's positively ancient, but we could be wrong.  That side of the family is from Ukraine and Russia, but we are pretty sure the lettering is not Russian, because the R's are facing the right way.  Here is what the case says:

Top Line, First Side:  ANNO 1773
Bottom Line, First Side:  D14 IANV AR

Top Line, Second Side: T V I G D H N
Bottom Line, Second Side: V G

On the Cap:  Top Line:  4
On the Cap:  Bottom Line:  MF

My thought was that the markings on the cap could be the makers mark, but I couldn't find anything online about it.    There are no marks on the fork itself, and we are thinking because of the feel of the tongs it is made out of silver.  There is mother of pearl inlaid in the handle.  So, if anyone knows any language in which these letters make sense, please let me know!  Any help would be great.  So yes, this is our mystery.

Hope everyone else had a great weekend too!

Goddess Bless,

Stacy