Pretty sure that’s an O for 1749, but could be 1789. Much later engraved decoration may have obscured it as well as maker. Any thoughts appreciated.
I think it’s more likely to be 1729 O or 1731 Q. An identifiable maker’s mark would have nailed it down.
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Do you think if it’s 1729 or 1731 there wasn’t a maker’s mark, or is it just that it’s been rubbed out by the enthusiastic engraving?
Hi Paul:
If this is a George II spoon with a crowned London town guild mark showing assay between 1729 and 1731 and it’s Hanoverian pattern but with the end turned down rather than sharply up, it’s unusual. The lion passant is clear enough as is the remnant of the town mark and certainly the date letter is rounded and in a plain pentagonal shield.
To answer your question, spoons did get through the assay without makers marks but generally only if they were part of a largish bunch by a well known to the Guild’s assay master maker. I wonder if Guilds had Friday afternoon spoons, like Detroit used to have Monday morning cars where you were lucky if the camshaft wasn’t in upside down back in the sixties.
There is a lack of wear on the front left side of the bowl for a nearly three hundred year old sterling silver spoon.
Perhaps a picture of the back and the dimensions, length and weight might assist?
I take it the mark below the drop is part of the engraving and not a maker mark remnant?
Anyway it makes a fine jam spoon
CRWW
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This may be a case of an older Hanoverian pattern spoon that has had the terminal reversed. This was not an uncommon practice when the OE pattern was introduced and became more fashionable, the added decoration may have been done at the same time and would have the additional benefit of helping disguise the join of the terminal alteration.
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That was certainly where I was heading, Red6, I just didn’t feel I had enough data to reach the tentative conclusion you have. Indeed I really don’t know if the later brightwork was done when OE became popular or if it was done much later perhaps in Victorian times when someone bought up job lots of out-of-fashion hanoverian pattern spoons and decided to go into the jam spoon-creating business incidentally trimming back the worn front edges of the old bowls and removing the sponsor marks which might otherwise date them as made-over.
If I knew the size and weight and could see the back where the work is very often less carefully disguised, that might become clear(er).
Anyway, thank you for your certainly plausible and probably accurate thoughts.
CRWW
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It is worth noting if this theory is correct it was probably illegal in the UK not Canada/US when it was done and certainly is now.
The UK’s Hallmarking Act 1973 generally requires re-hallmarking if a precious metal item is significantly altered, repaired with more than a tiny amount of new metal (e.g., >1g gold/1g palladium/5g silver), or if its use changes (e.g., spoon to ring), as it’s an offence to alter existing marks or the item’s nature without Assay Office consent and re-assay; you need a “Change of Use Certificate” for significant changes to ensure the hallmark still accurately reflects the item’s composition and purpose.
When Re-Hallmarking (or Assay Office Consent) is Required:
- Major Alterations/Repairs: Adding more than a small threshold of precious metal (e.g., over 1g gold, 5g silver, 0.5g platinum, 1g palladium).
- Change of Use: Converting an item from one purpose to another (e.g., a sugar bowl into a milk jug).
- Altering Existing Marks: Removing, altering, or defacing existing hallmarks is illegal without consent. (source London Goldsmiths Hall)
CRWW
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Wow, fascinating thoughts and insights. Many thanks. The spoon is 7 inches long exactly, and weighs approx 29 grams (my scale only goes to the nearest gram. Here are more photos
Yoiks! Where’s the rat tail and why is the slightly blurry shot of the shank just below the drop showing such pristine lines? The professionals get around this sort of question by saying it’s a “transitional spoon”. Which is rather like Trump’s transitional politics. Tells you nothing except its shifty and cash changed hands. No sign of the tail getting reversed Red6, but didnt really expect it — too much work for too little marginal return.
So last quarter Vicky/Jermyn Street cutwork. Doesn’t look like anybody touched its handle tail and cannot explain why the sponsor’s mark isn’t there.
This is a serious jam spoon, nothing fiddly about it so the owner had a raspberry and/or strawberry cage and a kitchen staff to put up the jars inhis larder.
Try as I might I cannot get modern strawberries or their jams to taste like those Royal Sovereigns that everybody grew in their walled kitchen gardens before and even after the war. Delicious.
CRWW
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Apologies for the photo, I’m sick in bed, but still intrigued by this spoon. Is this photo helpful? And is it possible the later engraver buffed off the rat tail to hide it’s provenance?
Get well and enjoy the new year, Paul.
I take it this is a pre-clean spoon shot. Not sure it tells us much more other than in the last 300 years it has had attention paid to it and the erased makers mark may have had a flat-bottomed punch shape.
I could look up every spoon maker in business in the date period who had a flat bottomed punch and I will probably come up with three. But it’s your spoon…
The tail of the handle has been trimmed and bent to make it look OE. Which is rather what we suspected. The spoon bowl has been edge trimmed and, yes it is possible the rat tail was taken off.
And the decorating is late 19th century work very Bill Morris.
Now go find the jam pot for it!
Cheers
CRWW
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Many thanks again Mr. Wilson. Languishing in my sick bed and scrolling through various Hanoverian spoons, it seems that the drop heel was starting to take over from the rat tail around the period of my spoon’s original manufacture, cf these babies 6 Silver Table Spoons, 1732 by Joseph Smith » Antique Silver Spoons. It almost feels like my spoon went through three different phases: OG manufacture circa 1730, conversion to OE late 18th c, then Morrisesque decorative work late 19th c. The stories this spoon must have to tell. Btw, we always called him Billy. Maybe it was his spoon and Dante carved it as a secret love token for Janey?
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