Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

posted 08-27-2010 01:28 PM            

---

It is not unusual to find trefid spoons with faint lines engraved along the front of the stem parallel to each edge, generally referred to as guidelines. The assumption is that these guidelines were an aid to shaping the stem but I have never understood how that was meant to have worked. I can see that a template might be used to mark out the intended final shape of the stem but would have expected this to mark the actual edge, not a line a little way inside that edge. Rather fewer than 10% of my trefids have these guidelines. It is of course possible that others had them originally but have now lost them as a result of polishing and wear.

I have photographed four examples in the hope that these mostly very faint guidelines will be visible in the pictures.

Laceback tablespoon, Robert King, London, 1678.

Exeter tablespoon (town mark in bowl only), pricked EM over HM over 1685 on back of stem but probably of earlier make. The crude engraving at the top of the stem clearly carried out separately from the guidelines.

Plain provincial tablespoon by TB (maker’s mark on stem only), circa 1695. Unusually the guidelines are repeated on the back of the stem.

Provincial laceback tablespoon by NT (maker’s mark on stem only), pricked SW over RA over 1690 on back of stem. The comical,be-wigged face on the stem end is an unusual feature.

I am wondering whether any of our members who are more knowledgeable about the history of silver or the craft of the silversmith can throw more light on the function of these guidelines.

IP: Logged

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

posted 08-27-2010 02:32 PM            

---

A further comment now that I have seen how the pictures show up. The guidelines really are very faint on all but the second spoon.

You need to zoom in, ideally to 200% or even 400%, when I think there is a reasonable chance you will make them out. I can, but of course I know exactly what I am looking for.

IP: Logged

Posts: 6
Registered: Apr 2010

posted 09-11-2010 12:20 PM            

---

Very interesting question. Such 'guidelines' on Trefid spoons are often mentioned in sales catalog descriptions, and are indicative of minimal wear, and yet their exact original purpose is not obvious.

This is really a question for a spoonmaker but my guess is that the lines were indeed guides to the eventual shape of the handle. Once the handle was hammered flat but the edge shape was not finished, these lines might have indicated the intended contour of the edge. Rather than marking the intended edge itself, however, they were placed a set distance away from it so that they would not be destroyed by the hammering and would remain visible until the edge was finished.

IP: Logged

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

posted 09-11-2010 01:08 PM            

---

Thanks, Mazarine. That makes sense. (Why didn't I think of it?)

David

IP: Logged

Posts: 602
Registered: Apr 2004

posted 12-05-2010 05:24 PM            

---

Interesting topic. I just wonder if possibly those lines were actually just simplistic decorative additions.

IP: Logged

Posts: 850
Registered: Jun 2004

posted 12-05-2010 08:11 PM            

---

Can I jump in with no expertise with spoons of this age but from a makers point of view (and that said by no means do I know all there is about making spoons), it seems that Argentum is on the right track. Mazarine makes plausible assumptions but the lines would be very hard to get onto a spoon in progress and any hammering beyond the lightest would mar and move the lines if not obliterate them. After the spoon is finished and filed up it is a very easy thing to set a simple set of dividers to the right opening and scribe these lines.

IP: Logged

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

posted 12-06-2010 01:19 PM            

---

That’s very interesting. Silver reference books seem to regard these lines as “workman’s guidelines” but the books are written by collectors rather than silversmiths. This won’t be the only example where a spoonmaker tells me that a writer on silver has jumped to an unlikely conclusion. However, if the lines are just decorative it remains a bit of a puzzle that they should be so faint.

I am now wondering whether they might have had some other practical purpose. For example, it would presumably take some sawing and perhaps filing to finish the trefid stem end. Would these lines be any help in lining up that work? Or am I just clutching at straws?

IP: Logged

Posts: 850
Registered: Jun 2004

posted 12-06-2010 09:32 PM            

---

Not at all. I think that has real merit as a possibility. Just to let you know it is not hard to hammer a stem straight and symmetrical and then file it up and all irregularities disappear. It might help to scribe the "guide" lines to help keep it all in order when the top is shaped.

IP: Logged

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

posted 12-10-2010 11:32 AM            

---

Thanks, Agleopar. I guess we cannot know for certain without evidence about the detailed practice of spoon making at the time. One thing the guidelines don’t seem to have helped with is lining up die struck decoration. On most trefids the alignment is fine but on the occasional provincial example it is very obviously skewed.

Both the pictured provincial spoons have guidelines, though they don’t show up in my picture, On both the stamped decoration is notably askew. I am told that a press would have been needed to strike this sort of pattern and that it is all too easy for the spoon to move out of position under the die. Perhaps some provincial smiths were less meticulous than the London ones when it came to scrapping spoons that went wrong in this way.

The spoon on the left is also the fourth shown in my original post. The one on the right is by another unidentified maker (flower and anchor marks) and is pricked ED over TW over 1683.

I am not sure what the sequence of operations would have been. If the stem end was given its final shape after the decoration had been applied I imagine the guidelines would have helped in keeping the spoon straight rather than bending to follow the outline of the skewed pattern.

Although they are very thin, the guidelines must have been reasonably deep to survive as they have even on the more worn of the two spoons. Whether or not the lines had the suggested practical purpose, they must have been deemed decorative enough to feature on the finished spoon.

IP: Logged

All times are ET