posted 10-05-2008 02:19 PM            

For most of the century miniature spoons seem to have been considered too small to require assay so most carry just a maker’s mark or are not marked at all. I don’t believe they were trade samples. Some were toys. A silver toy was not necessarily a child’s plaything. Toy was the term used for a whole range of small silverware and trinkets. A small spoon may have helped furnish one of the fashionable Dolls Houses of the period or may have been owned just for its amusement value.

This is a set of four toy Hanoverian rattail spoons, 2 7/8 inches long, shown with a toy saucepan, all made circa 1725 by David Clayton, the most prolific toymaker of the time.

Here is a toy set of knife fork and spoon of c.1740. Only the 3 inch long spoon is marked, by Jeremiah King.

And here is a cased set of c. 1770: four teaspoons, 3 ½ inches long, by John Lampfert with tongs by Richard Mills. The mote spoon is not part of the set and is by Elizabeth Oldfield, c.1750. The size of these pieces is on the borderline – they could just be a small traveling set for normal adult use.

Other miniature spoons were part of the equipment kept in small etuis, their actual use depending on the owner of the etui. Etui spoons will normally be less than 3” long and have relatively slim proportions. I don’t own a fully equipped etui but I have put a spoon into an empty one just to demonstrate.

Very small spoons are sometimes found fitted inside snuff boxes. Here are two spoons of that type which may well have been snuff spoons. The 1 ½ inch long dognose example has the makers mark WI. The later 1 ¾ inch long spoon is unmarked. Its style is more French Fiddle than Hanoverian.

I could go on with more examples of miniature spoons but this post is plenty long enough so I shall desist.

P.S. Sorry the last photo above is so awful. I should have deleted it and used the one that is now below and that shows the front of the same two little "snuff" spoons.

posted 10-06-2008 06:22 PM            

To what extent miniature spoons were actually snuff spoons is an interesting point. There is a tendency in England to describe them all as snuff spoons regardless of the lack of evidence to justify this. I believe the common practice was to take a pinch of snuff with the fingers but the more finicky would use a little spoon. A small minority of surviving snuff boxes have such a spoon fitted. Only the smallest miniatures, under 2 inches long, would fit the normal snuff box, and even these might also have been toys. I could equally imagine them gracing a table in a large, expensively furnished Dolls House.

The picture below shows a range of miniatures ranging from 3 inches long down to 1½ inches.

The dognose example on the left, by Jean Harache, I would think of as a “toy” spoon. The Hanoverian next to it, also by Jean Harache, is from a part set of three and pretty certainly a toy. However, the third spoon (Hanoverian, maker ET) with its slim dimensions is probably from an etui.

I suspect the fourth spoon, a fancy front by Benjamin Cartwright, may also have graced an etui judging by its slim bowl. The next two fancy fronts, both by II, probably John Innocent, were almost certainly intended for etuis. Note the slim stems. Their decoration comes from the same die.

Numbers 7 and 8 are smaller fancy fronts in a similar pattern, unmarked, and could have fitted a small etui or indeed a snuffbox.

The last two spoons on the right are the pair also illustrated at the end of my first post. They are the most likely to have been snuff spoons, simply on the basis of their size.

I guess that a spoonmaker asked to produce a spoon of a given size for a snuff box might make something pretty similar to the spoons he would make for a toy tea set so the final answer has to be that we cannot know for certain once a spoon has become detached from its original context.

All of which takes only a little further!

posted 10-07-2008 08:38 AM            

All the marks I have been able to identify on miniature spoons are those of London makers. Not surprising because the people buying this sort of thing would be at the luxury end of the trade. However there were doubtless those in America who were also happy to afford such indulgence and I guess any spoonmaker would be able to produce a miniature if requested. For somebody who didn't make them regularly there might sometimes have been a problem over the size of available dies in the workshop: my little French Fiddle pattern spoon (last but one in the row of spoons) has a disproportionately large drop to the back of the bowl, for example.

Although your little spoon may well be English made, I wouldn't want to rule America out entirely unless the mark could be identified as belonging to an English maker. Edmund Bodington had an oval punch, for example, but with blackletter/gothic style initials.

As regards the lack of the sterling lion passant mark on these miniature spoons, this mark was struck by the assay office. Items too small to be marked conveniently were exempt from assay. It suited the silversmiths to deem these miniature spoons too small. Prior to 1757 this saved them the duty payable on each item and after that date it still saved the assay fee. This changed when a new duty was introduced in 1784 (to pay for the American War of Independence!). I only have a couple of miniatures later than this, both of them fully marked.

posted 10-07-2008 04:32 PM            

I love minis myself, and have a few American ones, one of which was posted years ago. I may have to dig them out and add to the List in the other forum.

Thanks for sharing all of these little treasures,

posted 10-07-2008 06:18 PM            

I agree that the spoon may well not be English - it certainly isn't a typical English style, though the occasional larger French Fiddle style spoon was made, presumably for those with a taste for the continental.