Hi all,
We are used to dealing with English silver and are having trouble identifying this particular spoon. We guessed Netherlands but could be off.
As you can see the mark on the far right is worn off to where you can’t actually make out what it is.
Well, it appears to be well-used fiddle pattern spoon, probably a teaspoon. The base metal is showing through on the bowl of the spoon. The marks are typical faux silver as you will know given you are used to dealing with UK silver.
There are web sites where you can look these marks up if you are prepared to spend the time.
I don’t think the makers mark is rubbed out I think it was never very deeply stamped and was partially obliterated when the electroplate was applied probably about a 120 years ago.
https://www.925-1000.com/silverplate__menu.html#google_vignette
This site used to be the grand-daddy of plate marks and quite useful. Now with the popup ads it is just annoying.
The style is English not Dutch, likely one of the millions of teaspoons stamped out in Sheffield.
What to do with it? In its present shape it has a negative value as it need re-plating and that costs money. So what it needs is a story. If you’ve got an expensive piece its called “provenance”. All this can afford is a story.
It’s a decidedly pedestrian spoon, so find a decidedly pedestrian cup and saucer to go with it and then the former owner of same. Someone famed for being tedious and associated with middle class pretensions without the cash to actually afford silver but who latterly became famous for his scathing commentary on 19th century social life or even 20th century will do.
A trade unionist would work nicely, or a garreted writer trapped in the attic of a suburban house long abandoned by the middle classes and now falling prey to the latest batch of hopeful immigrants seeking free teeth care of the social welfare state which never quite materialized.
Armed with all this data donate to your local friendly museum and get a tax receipt.
CRWW
Oh wow thank you. We had no idea. We were confident it was silver and not plated due to the feel, weight and malleability of the metal. Are you 100% sure?
Armed with this knowledge it shall remain were it has been.
Thanks again for your help.
Good heavens no. I am never 100% sure of anything. I’m a disciple of Occam’s razor not Immanuel Kant.
And photos are notoriously bad evidence. At least that’s what I argue when I get caught by a speed or red light camera.
But, as the judge ruled, " Well sir, the preponderance of evidence is against you and so am I"
Cheers
CRWW
This question has also been asked on another forum.
Hi Phil:
I guess moral absolutism still has its fans among the owners of faux silver despite the tautological conundrum that position nicely illustrates.
" I believe my faux silver is real"
" No, it isn’t"
" But I think it is, therefore it could be."
“Okay.”
“I mean what if you are wrong?”
" Would you like me to be wrong?"
" Yes, as that would mean I was right"
“That doesn’t actually follow.”
" I know, but the fact that I think you could be wrong, means, while I may not be right, I’m not necessarily wrong either".
" Are we still talking about spoons?"
" You see, you’re not even sure about that after you’ve heard my views"
“About that you are much closer to being right than you might think. Like Sir Isaac Newton you have reached the limit logic can take you and are heading into the heady climate of pure alchemy turning base metal into silver.”
CRWW
Possibly more Hitchens’ Razor than Occam’s Razor.
Christopher Hitchens is generally credited with popularizing the idea that “what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence” Though I thoroughly enjoyed the faux Socratic dialogue offered by Mr Wilson.
Christopher Hitchens was fairly solid on stuff until he went over to the US when he got all excited about the WMD war against Iraq. He eventually figured out he was wrong and that Powell was plain lying to the UN security council so he pulled a Trump and started attacking something else to take everybody’s mind off his blunder.
Unfortunately he picked on Mother Theresa for her stance on Albanian abortion and then expanded that to a general attack on organized religion.
A guy with a Royal Navy Dad and a Jewish Mom should have known better being raised in a country where God is not a religion in the ordinary sense of the word but more a department of state with seats in the House of Lords.
But he had learned how to debate and used those skills and that dialectic to muddle through.
CRWW
Well, plated it is then!
