I’d been looking at the Pen Collectors of America site and admiring the lovely old overlay pens and chatelaine holders. Then Mario showed me these:
Feast your eyes!
The silver chatelaine case has an anomalous date letter for 1912. I understood the name Bard was dropped in 1907.
Many thanks for the excellent photos, Mario!
Goodwriterspens's Blog 
Excellent photos…scrumptious pens very cool. I’d also understood that Bard was outta there in ’07 , bit hard to question a hallmark ,though maybe there were variations?
It’s certain that Bard was removed from the company name in 1907. Perhaps the wrong punch was accidentally used in the assay office. Certainly a mystery – something that happens with MT all the time!
The manufacturer doubtless made a batch of these pre 1907 and stamped their mark in a cartouche at the time. When the case was subsequently sent for assay in 1912 the Assay Office would place their marks where the manufacturer had wanted them to go rather than where was merely convenient to them and use the correct date stamp for the year. Sometimes however, older makers marks were used either inadvertently or through some necessity.