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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: cordley on Friday 29 August 25 08:42 BST (UK)
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These three spoons have been passed down through the family and I would like to age them using the Assay marks. I am guessing early-mid 1800s
I think they were given to brides on their marriage - was that a common tradition, and if so by whom - the parents?
Can anyone help. please?
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The date letters on the spoons appear to be:
1.1815
2.1827
3.1806
All of them are English silver.
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Now that you/we have the dates of these spoons, is it possible to see what kind of spoons they are? And the sizes might give another clue.
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I will do that, they are all teaspoons, some in better condition (less used) than others. but just to note
1.1815 - monogrammed C
2.1827 - monogrammed AF
3.1806 - monogrammed EF
I thought the people were
1. A member of the CORDLEY family (of Weston, Nr Spalding, Lincs) My ancestral line.
2. No idea...
3. Elizabeth Guy, married Isaac French in 1819; she was b 1800 and died 1832. I have a beautiful sampler she made. She is my G3 Grandmother. But the date doesn't look right?
I have them hanging in racks - and in the following post is a close-up of the EF spoon, a more elegant spoon than the others.
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Spoon monogrammed EF
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Think I missed this photo
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And one more - from the six hanging separately - I think is Victorian and is named for Phoebe Parish who was the first wife of my great-grandfather James Phillip Williams. They married in 1873, but she died just four years later from TB.
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The date letter for the PP spoon is 1872.
I'll double check the date for the EF spoon.
djm297
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I would suggest that, at the time, sets of teaspoons were a typical wedding present. :)
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I've checked again...the EF spoon date letter is 1806.
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Thanks for helping and showing an interest. I walk past these spoons every day and wonder whose hands held them, who was having a cuppa, what occasions they witnessed.
Pam
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The PP spoon is the first to show a place where it was assayed - London - denoted by the leopard's head. The place stamp was probably omitted on the other spoons because they are small items. All the dates given correspond to London dates, and would be not be the same in other places. (There were ten cities with different marks, and numerous others at earlier dates.)
There is probably a maker's mark at the extreme right of PP, the only other maker's mark which may be visible is on EF.
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Thanks for that, so interesting. I am trying to place these spoons with people in my tree. I do have a couple of older ones (I think older) where the marks have all been mostly worn away.
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I forgot to say the head on each one is the sovereign's head, the duty mark, to show tax had been paid, which was in use from 1784 to 1890, Geo III & IV, Wm IV and Victoria.
I thnk you are right about the wedding presents BB. There was some custom about counting the teaspoons after you had them all out for a tea-party, making sure none had disappeared!
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Thanks again for all the help, I have found this all interesting.
I have two more spoons, which I think must been even older, just singles. They seem to have been stamped by the owner and have been handled/polished so much that hallmarks are mere shadows.
CWS - I wonder if this was a WS Cordley;
HG - I wonder if this was the father of Elizabeth Guy - Henry Guy 1764-1809
I wonder about the GUY family (Elizabeth is my G3 grandmother). I have also inherited a sampler she made in 1811. The spoons with initial EF I have assumed were hers - Elizabeth Guy, married Isaac French in 1819; she was b 1800 and died 1832 after having six children.
Assuming the spoons were from her family, they do look the most 'refined' and better quality than the others. Wonder if this reflects the family's status? As far as I can find out they were farmers, tenants not land-owners.
Anyway, this is what makes genealogy so fascinating!
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I've an early 19th C silver fork that is a lonely stray in my kitchen drawer - we use it for mashing up the cat's food!!! How's that for style?
TY
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My aunt and I both collected silver teaspoons at one time and I inherited her collection. Now they all lie in a box in a drawer and I don't know what to do with them. There are a very few with which I would never part for sentimental reasons, but the others could really just go somewhere else where they are appreciated. Any suggestions, anyone?
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I have my specials (family connections) hanging in spoon racks. The bottom one has a door, the top one is open, the top one allows more tarnishing!!!
But you may have more if you have been collecting them.
ThrelfallYorky - Did laugh at the family silver being used to feed the cat!!
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Ah well, I'm afraid that seems to be the only piece of silver I've found in the "junk cutlery drawer". The cats have enough delusions of grandeur already.
TY
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I have a collection of definitely-not-silver spoons which all started when I had a cough, on holiday in Barmouth, aged 2. Cough mixture was purchased, then they needed a spoon and so bought a Barmouth souvenir spoon. At home it was used to stir my hot chocolate. The next year I wanted a Falmouth spoon, and so it went on. Relatives brought them back as holiday presents, or sent them at Christmas. Not many people went abroad then, but my godmother gave me a very nice Pompeii spoon, and a cousin sent one from Cyprus when she was in the WAAF. I think there are about 30-35 tucked away in a drawer. I must dig them out.
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My favourites among my collection are one from Japan, which has a fan at the handle end, and one from New York with the Statue of Liberty on the handle. Then there's the Hildesheim Rose spoon and one from the former Yugoslavia with a deer symbol in very thin silver. Quite a few of mine have sentimental attachments, but then plenty of the others have little meaning at all and could easily be disposed of.