posted 03-17-2004 10:02 PM            

This item has me stumped. It appears to be some sort of olive or pickle fork with a sliding "pusher". However, the only pieces of that type that I have seen were Victorian or later. I would place this as late 18th-early 19th C. The patina is consistent over the entire surface, and I am convinced that it is not a fake or made-up piece. The marks are as shown; two different JT stamps and a cross. I am guessing that it has an English or colonial origin; it might be continental.

Does anyone have a clue as to the origin of this item? Is there such a thing as a Georgian pickle fork?

Brent

posted 03-20-2004 01:44 PM            

I have no idea of the origin or age of this object, but I doubt it to be English - perhaps, in the boader sense, British (provincial/colonial). For what it is worth, I noticed that two very similar (drawn) marks appear, perhaps only coincidently, on p.655 of Jackson III, in the list of Dublin goldsmiths. There are no dates given, but the larger [J•T] mark is before 1813, and the smaller [JT] is after that date. The larger mark is unascribed, and smaller one attributed to one John Townsend (that the Irish section of this edition has not been revised from the earlier edition).

I do not recognize the symbol impressed beside the marks, either - it may be a house mark or a tally mark. It does not appear in Jackson's appended list of symbols nor in Rosenberg's tables; as you suggest, it might imply a continental origin.

It would appear from the offset at the base of the central tine and the cuts at the bottom of the push rod that there was once an expanded attachment on the end of the rod to aid in dislodging whatever was speared on the tines.

posted 03-22-2004 05:09 PM            

The tines appear to have been constructed to curve inward.

The idea that it might be a scientific or medical instrument of some kind, rather than a dining implement, is intriguing. We know there were specialist scientific instrument makers in the 18th C. It may be that this is one of those obsolete medical devices that is difficult to pin down without some knowledge of medical practices of the time.

posted 04-01-2004 05:26 PM            

I have finally located my book on antique medical instruments (a real chamber of horrors, that). The only things that approach this are bullet extractors from the late 18th and early 19th Centuries (through the Civil War era). I am guessing here, but if the missing part could have been pushed down to expand the curved tines so that they could pass around a bullet, the hooks would then grip when the rod was withdrawn, and the bullet could then be withdrawn from the wound.

posted 12-08-2006 09:05 AM            

Your fork misses the "push-off" part, I catalogued my fork years ago as London 1840 by John Teare, smallworker, reg.1828, Grimwade 1855, Grimwade states that between 1840-42 other marks with serrated and lobed punches were noticed. The mark next to the JT mark is most probably a journeyman's mark - used to count (and pay for) the output of a journeyman.
The other shown pickle fork is by George Unite, Birmingham 1865, and shows a variation of the push-off mechanism.
During my 35 years of collecting I saw only two of these forks, now yours, but that does not necessarily mean, that the item is rare.

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Dorothea Burstyn