Filigree spoons

Purchased in Spain. They are large heavy ish teaspon size. This spoon’s marks seem the clearest with the position on the spoons varying and the first mark resembling an H being less clear on most of the others.

I thought the script might be russian but if so I can’t determine a meaning.

Any thoughts or questions welcome. Thanks for any time you spend on this!

The spoons come from Russia, probably from the Soviet period.

ц - цена - price.

1Р - 1 рубль - 1 ruble.

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Thanks @Bartholomew that’s super investigating :folded_hands:

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In the planned economy of the USSR, prices for goods were set by the state planning agency, Gosplan, and were not subject to market fluctuations. Engraving the price right on the spoon ensured it remained consistently priced from the factory to the store and beyond, eliminating any potential for price gouging or haggling.

Permanently marked prices aided in state-level inventory management and accounting. Every item had a predetermined value that was consistent across the entire country.

On silver-plated items, the price mark was often found alongside other marks like “МНЦ” (MNZ in Latin letters), which indicated the base alloy (copper, nickel, zinc). This distinguished the item from solid silver and the price was specific to that material and level of production.

In this case the H-like figure is a latin N and stands for nickel. Sometimes referred to as nickel silver or even German silver.

“Gosplan” was the the State Planning Committee, the central economic planning agency of the Soviet Union from 1921 to 1991. Which gives you rather wide dating latitude.

I am as always grateful to Bart for his translating skills.

CRWW

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So how did these USSR-era teaspoons get to Spain and why were they still there?
Here’s my theory:

In the early 1930s Stalin was concerned about the spread of fascism in Europe. To counteract the growing power of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, he encouraged the formation of left wing coalitions. This resulted in the Spanish Popular Front government being formed in February 1936.

On the 10th May 1936 the conservative Niceto Alcala Zamora was ousted as president of Spain and replaced by the left-wing Manuel Azaña. Soon afterwards Spanish Army officers began plotting to overthrow the Popular Front government. This resulted in the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War 17th July, 1936.

UK PM Baldwin and President Blum of France called for all countries in Europe not to intervene . In September 1936 a Non-Intervention Agreement was drawn-up and signed by 27 countries including the Soviet Union and Germany.

Despite this Hitler also continued to give aid to General Franco and his Nationalist forces but attempted to disguise this by sending the men, planes, tanks, and munitions via Portugal.

Joseph Stalin now became concerned that the Nationalists would defeat the Republicans in Spain. Although Stalin continued to support the idea of the Nonintervention Agreement, he was now willing to supply the necessary military aid to stop a fascist regime being established in Spain.

Stalin encouraged the Comintern to organize the formation of International Brigades.

The Soviet Union provided considerable help to the Spanish Communist Party to improve its position in the Popular Front government.

The Soviet Union soon became the main suppliers of military aid to the Republican Army. This included 1,000 aircraft, 900 tanks, 1,500 artillery pieces, 300 armoured cars, 15,000 machine-guns, 30,000 automatic firearms, 30,000 mortars, 500,000 riles and 30,000 tons of ammunition. So why not six teaspoons?

The Soviets expected the Republicans to pay for these military supplies in gold. At the outbreak of the war Spain had the world’s fourth largest reserves of gold. During the war approximately $500 million, or two-thirds of Spain’s gold reserves, were shipped to the Soviet Union.

So if I am right, that dates these very '20s looking spoons to the 1930’s long before war production drained the Soviet nickel supplies and took them into war with Finland over their mines.

My suspicion is these spoons were the property of a wife of a Soviet officer sent over there to advise rather the same sort of thing the Americans did in Vietnam in the1960’s.

CRWW

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Fantastic insight and hypothesis, thank you for sharing @Guildhall !

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