~~~ English-speaking country?

Google isn't cooperating with me and I can't find a match as to why the date of April 27 1894 is engraved into the piece... Some sort of presentation or trophy, maybe, where those involved in the game knew qbout it, only?

The insert in the flip really isn't telling me too much as to which auction (NJ?) house handled it in '89, either...and maybe whomever won the auction back then had no idea, either, since they wrote the wrong year...?