Thank you for your words and your perspective of the date, Lee. It instantly caught me as only plausible but then, after some reasoning, we would then have that, if it were a AH date, the digits were written in arabic, whereas the last one appears to be a strict 5 in the European manner, while not resembling any Arabic number. On the other hand, the third digit doesn't fit in either system, unless we admit a stylized trace, which i don't see in any number chart out there.
Eventualy in both cases the date would equally fall into the 18th century, which makes it plausible, but doesn't help to exclude one or another criteria.
I should add that, in the opposite side of the beam, there are traces of another golden inscription, only that they are too faded to make out anything of them.
I will have to take better pictures of the whole set; an existing far better texture should be shown. But for now i handed it over to a local (naval) smith, to rebuild the missing hook arm; hoping i will not regret the adventure.
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