Hi, I have this Ashberry P.A & S spoon. It is well used but no base metal is showing. However there is no stamp indicating that it is Silver or EPNS for that matter. Any guidance will be much appreciated, thank you.
It’s definitely not silver. It may be EPNS but as it isn’t marked as such it may just be a base metal alloy.
Phil
This ladle is made of Britannia metal, an soft malleable alloy composed approximately of 93 percent tin, five percent antimony, and two percent copper.
It is made by Philip Ashberry & Sons a company established in 1829 by Philip Ashberry, a spoon maker, born in Leicester in 1807.
He was based in Copper Street, Sheffield but eventually crossed over Gibraltar Street, now the
A61 to Bowling Green Street, near Kelham Island. In 1849, an advertisement in the local directory illustrated Ashberry’s Britannia Metal Works & Public Rolling Mill as a maker of spoons, tea, and coffee pots, and rolled tin. The Met has a 1901 patent book of his in its collections.
His works was a ground floor metal shop with a small furnace, a first floor for cutting horn scales with small circular saws, and an attic workshop for buffing spoons. In 1851, most of Ashberry’s workforce was female (18 men, 7 boys, and 48 women and girls).
CRWWilson