This is a long shot but worth a try. The attached image is contains the letters a,b,c,d,e and f. This font was used for the date letter of hallmarks in the London Assay office from 1638 to 1657 and again (in another series) from 1696 to 1715. Has anyone seen a font like this before, where a "c" has a stroke through it and "f" is a double ff.

Court Hand

http://cjoint.com/12fe/BBlqDllQCnS_hallmark.jpg


http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~oel/courthand.html