posted 07-16-2013 11:59 PM            

Now my gaze is turned to the arrival of the Fiddle Thread pattern in the US in the early 19th cent, with a view to establishing when, where, and how "native" examples came into being.

My working hypothesis would be that Fiddle Thread first appeared here in the somewhat weird single-struck examples with diminutive handles in the French fashion, and I wonder if anyone can offer an example that predates those of Samuel Kirk? We often hear of the lesser patterned wares of the 1850s and 1860s that the "makers marks" on them are but retailers, and they were really produced in factories in the north. But Kirk's single struck stuff is clearly Baltimore made, as evidenced by the 11oz and 10.15 marks. I suggest the single strike wasn't so much a taste, as an evolutionary step in the standardized production of the pattern in the US, and possibly initially easier and less expensive to produce. Am I wrong?

And I further note that it is very curious that the only other single struck American examples I see come from R&W Wilson- close contemporaries of S. Kirk- and only a stone's throw away in Philadelphia.

So I ask:

1. Please do set me straight if any of my assumptions above are incorrect.
   
2. Are there additional examples/makers of American single-struck Fiddle Thread?
   
3. What is the earliest date we can assign to domestically produced Fiddle Thread, and would those examples in fact be single struck?

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