Hi there,
I recently became the owner of this teaspoon– its got some interesting marks that I can’t find reference to, and I was hoping for some help.
I’m from Canada, but the previous owner of the spoon and I are both ancestors of immigrants who came to Canada from Scotland and Ireland in the mid 1800s. I doubt this spoon is that old, but you never know! Perhaps the inscription is from a school dining hall?
Any ideas re: makers marks or the inscription would be greatly appreciated.
SCC Dublin may be St Columba’s College, a co-educational independent day and boarding school founded in 1843 located in Whitechurch, County Dublin, Ireland. Something that might have been handed out to students as a prize or else a self-awarded souvenir
The wishbone trademark pops up from time to time on various boards without anybody desperate to claim ownership.
VICTA SILVER showed up an an unanswered but thoroughly researched question on the other forum which notes it is “unidentified” on the general board dealing with plate.
Since the wishbone trademark which may be just a “y” is not limited to VICTA silver but also appears on TABO silver , to get a final answer someone might want to research the historic trademark site for which there is a very modest fee.
https://925-1000.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56330
This ebay seller thinks its date is about 1880 and calls it Afghan silver.
The English back them felt competitive with Afghanistan, after Young-Husband got chased out of there (Americans don’t read history or they might have saved a lot of troop and treasure) and called silver with was really plate Afghan silver rather the same as we now call French fries French because you don’t actually fry them. Or German silver German which it sometimes was and most often was English.
Here’s another fork which adds absolutely nothing to my search other than someone living on the same Hebredian Island Donald Trump’s mother hailed from think they might get £1.99 for a table fork so marked.
https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-Victa-Silver-cutlery-fork-256523382892.html#&gid=1&pid=5
CRWW
This pewter maker uses a wishbone as part of his trademark but as the other Forum commentator suggests it’s not quite a fit having only one leg to stand on.
While there are an abundance of Irish silversmiths, very good ones, and while some of them plated for a living, there isn’t an Irish maker who manufactured using the wishbone trademark.
Indeed after 1807. when the Irish goldsmiths were forced to close down their regional assay offices, there was a general tendency not to bother too much with anything but the bare minimum of British registration of anything in Ireland.
But there is an abundance of Sheffield and Brummy plate being flogged to the Irish —well the Anglo-Irish anyway— which is probably how the school got to own this spoon.
CRWW
Thank you so much, I knew there would be some experienced collectors that would know where to look/what to look for.
This gives me a lot to research --it appears I’m about to learn some new stuff!
You are welcome. Now all I have to work out is how, if you and the previous owner are both “ancestors” of Irish Immigrants and you are from Canada, when Canadians started fleeing to populate Ireland.
We all know the stories of the coffin ships that sailed from potato famine Ireland to the docks of Toronto and Halifax and how Canadians, ever hyper-alert about immigrants coming to take scarce jobs spurned them until they agreed to become policeman and housemaids, but this reverse trend is of great interest.
Today, of course Ireland is the richest non-oil country in the EU and one of the highest per capita GNP countries in the world far exceeding Canada and everybody is trying to resurrect an Irish ancestor and go live there but that trend is too new to explain this teaspoon!
CRWW
