posted 05-13-2012 05:34 PM            

How old are American souvenir spoons? There is considerable evidence that souvenir spoons were being collected in the United States prior to 1852. Yes... the first die-stamped spoons designed and manufactured as souvenir spoons, appeared in 1889 (the Washington spoons designed and sold by Galt) but there is a Gorham spoon that was engraved to celebrate the Rhode Island State Fair in 1852 (Carpenter, Silver Magazine May-June 1980). And this isn't the only one. There are thousands of souvenir spoons that were created via engraving or etching from pattern handle spoons where the patterns were introduced many years prior to 1889 and, although this isn't proof, it's very suggestive.

There is no way to PROVE (with a few notable exceptions) when these spoons were engraved but there are snipits of information that indicate that Americans were collecting engraved and etched souvenir spoons as early as the 1850's. As soon as I get the posting of photos down I'll post photos of several spoons I own that very probably pre-date 1889... One of them is a very lightweight hand-wrought coin silver fiddleback spoon that is stamped McLean County Fair 1860 on the back with no other marks.

Pearl Silver: Pearl Silver is one of the white metals used by the Robbins company to produce souvenir spoons and flatware. The white metals, like German silver, have no silver content despite the word silver in their names.

The IU with Acorns mark is for the International Jewelry Workers and is fairly rare on souvenir spoons...

I've been collecting information about souvenir spoons for nearly 20 years and I can identify the various marks of over 170 manufacturers of die-stamped souvenir spoons... and have photos of a majority of their marks. I can also ID a fair number of Canadian souvenir spoon manufacturers including several that are not found in Robert Pack's book (and variations on marks that he doesn't list).

Hopefully one of these days I'll find a publisher for all this information (and the hundreds of photos I have to illustrate it) but I'm quite willing to answer questions about American and Canadian souvenir spoons for anyone who cares to ask.

Kat

posted 05-13-2012 05:45 PM            

quote:

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One of them is a very lightweight hand-wrought coin silver fiddleback spoon that is stamped McLean County Fair 1860 on the back with no other marks.

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posted 05-16-2012 12:29 AM            

Personally, not sure that I'd consider the coin silver premium/prize spoons as souvenirs - believe they were intended to be shown-off and/or used, nice reminders of the winning entries. There's pretty clear documentation that all types of silver pieces were awarded at fairs, from fairly early in the 19th century. Not where I can access my files at the moment, but have several bits & pieces mentioning them - will be glad to post them a bit later. Have been meaning to add them to the thread below, the one that piqued my initial interest several years ago:

H.V.A.S.

~Cheryl

posted 05-16-2012 12:35 AM            

And the Encyclopedia entry mentioned in the ad:

posted 05-16-2012 03:57 AM            

My definition of a souvenir spoon is one that celebrates a person (president, naval hero, Indian, actor, etc.), place (landmark, city, park, etc.), building (school, lighthouse, monument, capital, etc.), thing (ship, train, etc.), events (elections, world's fairs, etc.) - this doesn't include spoons with nothing but simple initials or dates.

Americans have been collecting spoons almost since the first English settlers set foot on this continent. There were keepsake spoons, friendship spoons and even spoons celebrating someone's death. The first true souvenir spoons were flatware spoons that were created as souvenirs of a place, person, event, thing, etc. These were engraved, bright-cut and etched with designs that portrayed a memory of something the owner wanted to immortalize.

There is a bit of evidence that Americans were collecting these created souvenirs as early as 1800. There's an article in an English publication in 1889 that suggests that Americans had brought the idea of souvenir spoons to Europe several years before.

Anton Hardt suggests that the following spoon was made either for the 100th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party in 1773 (the date on the spoon) or as souvenir for the Centennial Exposition held in 1876. The flatware pattern is certainly one that would have been available in the 1870's but went out of style very soon after that.

It's true that the Niagara Suspension Bridge design was patented 1881 but no one I've talked over the last 40 to has ever seen one so I'm assuming it was never manufactured.

Both Galt and Low made Grand Tours of Europe in 1888 and 1889 and both brought home souvenir spoons from those tours. The European souvenirs of this time were mostly a combination of cast and die-stamped with enameling. In the United States there had been stunning die-stamped flatware patterns for several years. What Galt did before Low did was to design and manufacture the first die-stamped sterling silver souvenir spoons! But Low wasn't far behind and his advertising was better so he gets all the credit. I have photos of many of Galt's Washington themed spoons and both of the Witch designs which I will post later.

posted 05-17-2012 09:24 PM            

Several books on souvenir spoons cite an article from a magazine, The English Exchange, which was reprinted in the January 1891 issue of The Jewelers’ Circular. This article appears to show that the craze for collecting spoons in Europe was in full swing well before 1891 and that it had originated in the United States.

“The idea of collecting spoons from every European city, which began about three years ago in earnest by our American relatives, has developed into nothing short of a craze. In London the trade disregarded it, but it was not so on the Continent. A number of cities have laid themselves out to the production of symbolic and characteristic spoons.”

Another clue is that The Exposition Universelle of 1889, held in Paris, France — and famous for the Eiffel Tower — apparently featured a large display of souvenir spoons dedicated to the cities and sights across Continental Europe. These spoons must have been in production long before 1889 to be available in enough numbers to rate a display at the Exposition.

posted 05-19-2012 02:35 AM            

With all due respect to the late Mr. Hardt (I have all four of his books, find them both useful and enjoyable), there's quite a bit of supposition on his part. To my eye, the spoon you show, so similar to the one in his New Discoveries in Historical Spoons (1977), appears to have a typical late 19th-early 20th century etched bowl design; not sure the spoon could be dated no later than the 1870s (unless the unmentioned marks do so), but regardless, the engraving could have been done at any time to commemorate the Boston Tea Party.

Regarding the 1852 Gorham RI State Fair spoon - Carpenter, in the Souvenir Spoons chapter of Gorham Silver 1831-1981, states, "...they may also have made some of the earliest spoons of this type in America."; also noting that the company exhibited at the fair and that the "Bushnell" engraved on the front was Henry C. Bushnell, who became foreman of Gorham's spoon department in 1852; an ivy-leaf motif salt spoon, engraved "EXPOSITION 1876" is also described. He notes an increased interest in spoon collecting in the 1880s, with Gorham catering to that market with sets like Nuremburg, Old Paris, etc., stating, "Although such spoons were (and still are) widely collected, they are not usually classified as souvenir spoons. The first true Gorham souvenir spoons seem to have been made in 1890.".

Really seems a bit subjective - while I might not consider pieces like premium/prize spoons, or some that depict a person, like mid 19th century Newell Harding George Washington Medallion spoons, as souvenirs, perhaps others would. Suspect there are spoons I'd consider souvenirs, that you might not.....

~Cheryl

posted 05-19-2012 06:02 PM            

Thank you so much for your efforts! I really appreciate your edits while I learn how this is done (I didn't post it twice, my computer appears to have hiccuped!) I looked at the formatting and hopefully I'll be able to do it in the future.

posted 05-19-2012 06:42 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by dragonflywink:

With all due respect to the late Mr. Hardt (I have all four of his books, find them both useful and enjoyable), there's quite a bit of supposition on his part. To my eye, the spoon you show, so similar to the one in his New Discoveries in Historical Spoons (1977), appears to have a typical late 19th-early 20th century etched bowl design; not sure the spoon could be dated no later than the 1870s (unless the unmentioned marks do so), but regardless, the engraving could have been done at any time to commemorate the Boston Tea Party.

~Cheryl

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The Boston spoon is only marked sterling, no makers or manufacturer's mark. My spoon is actually very, very similar to the one in Hardt and I believe was made by the same shop. The box of tea on the handle with the 1773 under it are virtually identical. The etching in the bowl is a bit different but since that's hand done that makes sense.

Here's another spoon that probably comes from the same shop and is very similar. The engraving is different but it's the same pattern and, like the other Boston spoon, is only marked STERLING.

posted 05-19-2012 07:36 PM            

Here are three more possible pre-1889 souvenir spoons!

This die-stamped flatware pattern is Rustic by A. F. Towle which was introduced in 1880. The Arcadia Hotel, pictured in the bowl, was built in 1887 and demolished in 1909. According to photos in the Santa Monica Library the coast around the hotel was crowded with a bath house and other hotels not pictured well before 1889. Could this spoon have been created as a souvenir by having the Santa Monica scene etched into the bowl in, or soon after, 1887? Yes, it’s possible...

This flatware spoon is Tipped by A. F. Towle which was introduced in 1883. It was created as a souvenir spoon when the word Alaska was etched into the bowl. This is clearly a die-stamped spoon, it's thick through the stem and very heavy in comparison to early fiddleback spoons but it's clearly influenced by early fiddleback patterns.

And this flatware pattern is Gorham's Hawthorne which was introduced in 1885. This one was created as a souvenir spoon when the name St. Augustine was etched into the bowl.

All of these sterling silver flatware patterns were available well before 1889 and all of these spoons could have been created as souvenirs before 1889 but there is no way to prove it...

posted 05-19-2012 10:35 PM            

Of course anything is possible but I think it is wishful thinking to hope that the souvenir engravings were in the first few years of these patterns given the timing of the craze for collecting souvenir spoons.

What is really needed is some proof that these were being sold at some point in time - something like seeing them in old newspaper advertisements, old jeweler's catalogs, etc.

posted 05-20-2012 02:16 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Kimo:
In all three examples, the souvenir aspect is an addition to an ordinary pattern spoon. This suggests to me they were added later and perhaps not by the original spoon makers.

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That's the point. These were souvenirs created when decoration was added to a spoon from an existing flatware pattern. They were probably done by local jewelers / retailers / silversmiths to fill a local demand. Etching is actually easy to do with the proper acid and resist to protect the areas that you don't want eaten away by the acid - these are supplies would have been available in almost any jewelry or watchmakers shop.

Engraving takes more training but many jewelers/watchmakers would be able to do it and there were engraver's shops in almost any medium to large town who, for a price, would engrave anything made of metal.

quote:

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Of course anything is possible but I think it is wishful thinking to hope that the souvenir engravings were in the first few years of these patterns given the timing of the craze for collecting souvenir spoons.

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So many of the scenes found on these flatware spoon souvenirs commemorate things or people from prior to 1889 that it seems probable that at least a percentage of them do pre-date 1889.

quote:

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What is really needed is some proof that these were being sold at some point in time - something like seeing them in old newspaper advertisements, old jeweler's catalogs, etc.

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Unfortunately there is almost no empirical evidence that the spoons pre-date 1889. There are thousands of these created souvenir spoons. Many clearly post-date 1889 (the flatware patterns weren't manufactured until after 1890 for example) but there are so many of them that use scenes and/or elements that pre-date 1889 that it just seems logical, given that there are a few well recorded spoons that pre-date 1889 and fit the loose definition of a souvenir spoon, that at least some of these spoons do pre-date 1889.

posted 05-20-2012 04:50 PM            

Don't believe there's any question that local retailers, etc. offered personalization of spoons for the souvenir market (and I've had some pretty amateurish engraving on a number of spoons), seems likely that a good number of those would be on readily available line patterns; but etching and engraving was also offered by large mail-order companies, and not sure there's any reason to believe that etching and engraving couldn't have been factory-done at a retailer's request.

Not sure how much weight can be given to differences in details on the depictions of locations, suspect that the craftsmen's renditions were taken from illustrations or photographs that may or may not have been current, plus the standard 'artistic license'. Don't believe it would be unusual to note the date of a past event, many of the mass-produced die-struck souvenir spoons included the date of a past historic event.

Personally, wouldn't guess your lovely spoons earlier than the 1890s, and unfortunately, as Kimo suggests, earlier dating might be difficult to prove without some dated print references - hopefully, further research will turn those up.

posted 05-20-2012 05:30 PM            

1897 pages on engraving and etching available, from the Chicago-based BHA (Lapp & Flershem) catalog:

1889 - from the same company, no mention of souvenirs or etching, but they did have a silverplate bon-bon box with an etched fruit design showing a similar border to those used in spoons: