posted 01-28-2012 01:58 PM            

I am sure these are silver, but not positive the pattern is called Lily. Also want to know whether "Towle Mfg. Co" 4 oz. could be silver or if that would be silverplate flatware.

posted 01-29-2012 10:23 AM            

Your photos are good and I like your cat too! I used to have a tuxedo cat as well.

Could you please introduce yourself just a bit more. Are you a spoon collector or silver more broadly, or is this the pattern of your personal silverware, or are you doing research to sell these?

Also, if you could please ask your cat to help you post some photos of the other markings you talk about that would be really helpful to figuring out what you have.

posted 01-30-2012 12:30 AM            

I'm interested in the arts and history. I am fairly new at collecting silver. I only have a few pieces of Sterling. I have quite a lot of 1870 to 1920 silverplate. I was a chef and owned a catering company for 10 years. I used to use my own silverplated holloware for the events which my clients loved. Now, even though I have not been a caterer for more than 15 years, I love collecting tableware of many kinds, from antique damask linens, to fine china and crystal and silver serving pieces. I enjoy using them when entertaining our friends in our hundred year old home. They fit right in!

I am currently selling some antiques at a Maryland antique mall. Most of my wares are beautifully bound books,furniture and tableware items from the Victorian age. We live near Antietam and Gettysburg so fortunately there is a good market here for items from the Civil War period.

I am curious by nature. I love learning about the history of the pieces I sell (and keep!) so that I can put them into context. Sometimes I actually dig into genealogy to research the names of the women who signed hand painted china pieces, or the inscriptions on books. They come alive!

One of the main reasons I'm here to learn from those of you who are experts. I would love to learn more about the history, and the art of Master Silversmiths. I don't know enough about Silver marks and makers to buy wisely or protect my own interests. I need an education!

These silver spoons I am showing in this thread are some I bought in an on-line auction. When they arrived I was surprised by how carefully engraved they are. I love them and I think it would be nice to have a few more pieces like them for coffee with friends. I'm not selling them. These are keepers. I see some similar, Towle Mfg. Co. perhaps in silverplate? but the design is not as crisp or precise. I can't post a photo of the mark because it's not my photo...they are on the auction site. The pattern may be Lily or Engraved? Not sure. It would help me to start being informed.

Kimo,
I imagine you had a great friend in your tuxedo cat. My cat Maestro, aka Micey, recently lost his left hind leg to a non-cancerous bone tumor, but is doing very well and the prognosis is good. He is my constant companion...love him so much!

Thanks again for the welcome.

posted 01-30-2012 01:07 PM            

I am not an expert on these two related patterns - Towle engraved and Towle Lily but hopefully someone here will be able to explain the differences.

Henry Semken was mainly a jeweler and retail store owner, though I have occasionally seen vague references to his making silver. My thought is that these spoons are most likely not something he made, but rather something he retailed out of his jewelry store which was in Washington, D.C. It was (and still is) common for stores to buy silverware wholesale from the big makers such as Towle, and apply their own retailer markings and from what I see here I think may be what you have. The STERLING marking on the one you show indicates it is solid silver with a 92.5 percent purity plus 7.5% other metals such as copper and nickle and such to make an alloy that is strong enough to use. 100% pure silver is so soft it would bend out of shape at the first use so it needs to be an alloy. The Sterling standard is 92.5% silver.

The other spoon you mention that says 4oz. is silver plated. There all all kinds of non-standard standards for silverplate and it is like the wildwest as to what any of them actually mean. One of the silver plate standards you sometimes see on US made objects is a number of ounces of silver that was used to plate so many spoons and forks. The lowest grade is typically 2 ounces which would be the amount of silver they used on 24 spoons or forks - less than a tenth of an ounce per spoon or fork. That would be one layer of silver. Yours that say 4oz would be one step up from that and essentially be double plated and in theory would have a bit more than one-tenth of an ounce of silver per piece. The higher the number of layers of silver plating would be higher costs to buy and make the them last longer before wearing through. Unless the flatware was never used, some amount of the silver plating would be lost by now. These numbers are only advertising and approximations - I doubt whether there was any scientific measuring as to exactly how much silver was plated on. There was not (and still is not) any legal requirement that silverplating meet any proven standards in the way that silver requirements exist in the UK hallmarking system for example.

If you come across a spoon from this era with no markings you should expect that they are silverplated or have no silver at all.

My tuxedo cat was a rescue and he was very sweet and friendly, even to complete strangers. I think of him and miss him often.

posted 01-30-2012 04:08 PM            

I think Kimo is correct however and Semken was most likely the retailer and someone else made the spoons.

posted 01-30-2012 07:05 PM            

Thanks too Kimo. From what I am gathering about Henry Semken, he was born in Prussia in abt. 1825. He is listed in 1863 in his civil war draft registration as a jeweler and later, in the census for Washington DC, as a jeweler. One website I found lists him as both a silversmith and a jeweler, which I suppose doesn't necessarily mean he himself manufactured those spoons. I guess that's what you mean by vague reference, Kimo. I am reading that jewelers frequently engraved plain silver made by larger silver companies. At the time these were made the Towle company was making some "Engraved" pattern spoons very like these, but the ones I see are not nearly as elegant. Did Towle and other factories employ in-house engravers for this type of work? I wonder which came first...Semken's engraved design or Towle's. Curiouser and curiouser!

Thank you

posted 01-31-2012 11:38 AM            

~Cheryl

Engraved Lily pattern shown in 1889 retailer's catalog (illustration shows the design reversed from usual orientation):

Spoon from my collection with similar engraving to yours - Norfolk, Virginia retailer's mark: