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labor to make this ladle ?

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Author	Topic: labor to make this ladle ?
cbc58 Posts: 341 Registered: Aug 2008	posted 07-14-2017 09:03 AM I recently acquired a 12" shell ladle dated 1799 and wonder how much time and labor may have been involved to make it. Had seen a video here in the past about Old Newbury Crafters making a sterling spoon out of a blank piece of silver and I think they indicated they could make a spoon in about 20 minutes. This is beyond a simple spoon and learning about the process back then makes me appreciate what I am collecting. Just wondering if I am correct in thinking that this took a fair bit of work to make. Here are a couple of pics: IP: Logged
asheland Posts: 935 Registered: Nov 2003	posted 07-14-2017 09:28 AM We have a few silversmiths on here that should be very helpful with this. I too appreciate how things are made and would imagine a large ladle with the shell bowl would be a little more labour intensive. It looks like a nice piece! Can we see the hallmarks and engraving? IP: Logged
cbc58 Posts: 341 Registered: Aug 2008	posted 07-14-2017 10:20 AM It is not engraved. Here are the hallmarks - which are rubbed. Jury is out on who the maker is... IP: Logged
agphile Posts: 798 Registered: Apr 2008	posted 07-14-2017 11:46 AM If I am right in reading the mark as RC, I would think this is most likely to be Richard Crossley. Like Asheland I would like to see what our silversmiths say about any difference between spoons and ladles, size for size, as far the time taken to make them is concerned. I assume there was a die for the shell bowl and it did not have to be hand chased. IP: Logged
cbc58 Posts: 341 Registered: Aug 2008	posted 07-14-2017 04:29 PM I wonder if the bowls were formed over a die with a hammer or possibly somehow with force or pressure, or maybe they were cast in a mold... Found this link on here about ONC making shell ladle bowls with a drop forge. If that is the way they did it back in the day, guessing it might require starting with a sheet of metal of uniform thickness placed in the forge. Were there suppliers of sheet silver back then that sold to silversmiths or did they get ingots and melt them down themselves to make sheets and blanks? Old Newbury Crafters - page 4 [This message has been edited by cbc58 (edited 07-16-2017).] IP: Logged
Polly Posts: 1971 Registered: Nov 2004	posted 07-21-2017 02:31 PM Rob (agleopar), one of our working silversmith members, will have the answer to your question. Yoo-hoo, Rob!! Calling all agleopars!!! IP: Logged
ahwt Posts: 2377 Registered: Mar 2003	posted 07-21-2017 09:05 PM It is a very nice ladle and you might ask the seller if he is willing to pay half of thr repair costs. IP: Logged
cbc58 Posts: 341 Registered: Aug 2008	posted 07-21-2017 10:17 PM quote: Originally posted by ahwt: It is a very nice ladle and you might ask the seller if he is willing to pay half of thr repair costs. They won't pay half.. or even a little. IP: Logged
agleopar Posts: 850 Registered: Jun 2004	posted 07-22-2017 07:29 AM Hello cbc58, sorry I am in Maine with little access to the web so I did not see your post. I love ladles! Briefly, a good spoon maker, one who works hot in the English way, can forge a table spoon in 20 minutes and finish it in the hour. A ladle will be forged in a matterr of hours. My guess for yours is 3-4 but the finishing, including the chasing, would also be 2-3 hours. So not quite a days work. After 30ish years of making spoons I was asked to make large basting spoons - almost the size of a ladle. It surprised me because the 10 ounce ingot stayed hot and soft longer than a 2-3 ounce spoon and was fast to reheat because it was still so hot. The forging went quite fast! This inspired me to make ladles which the thought of doing so had been intimidating and I loved it The Sheffield spoon maker David Baggaley made a 30 + ounce spoon starting with a 50 ounce ingot and it took him 50 hours total! I hope this answers your questions. A last thought, a ladle is a challenge because of the amount of effort to forge the width of the bowl. It also then has to be sunk and or raised more than a spoon so they are for the experienced forger. P.S. My times for a ladle are slow, 8 hours forging, because I am a very part time spoon forger! IP: Logged
Polly Posts: 1971 Registered: Nov 2004	posted 07-22-2017 07:10 PM Apologies for distracting you from your lobsters and sailboats, Rob! I hope you're having a smashing time in the Vacation State. So the ridges that make this ladle shell-shaped would have been hand chased rather than forged in a die? (Am I using those words correctly?) IP: Logged
agleopar Posts: 850 Registered: Jun 2004	posted 07-24-2017 12:23 PM Yes Polly, I believe when and where this was made it would have been chased. It's a quick easy job as chasing goes. Later ladles might have had a die made up. Close inspection with magnification should reveal hand chasing but if it was finished (polished) very well it will be hard to spot. The Maine report for those who keep track of these things: 2 blue lobsters have been found this summer the southern one was on the news already. The one I saw 3 days ago on Mount Desert island had just been found. And yes it was blue and apparently they estimate the occurrence to be 1 in one million! [This message has been edited by agleopar (edited 07-24-2017).] IP: Logged
Polly Posts: 1971 Registered: Nov 2004	posted 07-24-2017 12:36 PM Blue lobster: quote: New Hampshire lobsterman Greg Ward might want to go buy a lottery ticket. The 32-year veteran fisherman hit the genetic lottery earlier this week when he hauled in a rare blue lobster - the chances of which scientists say are about 1 in 3 million. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ward told the Portsmouth Herald. “Usually, the stronger lobsters are usually the reddish-brown color but this one still had a hard shell. This one was not all the way white and not all the way blue.” Ward, a native of Rye, New Hampshire, was hauling pots near the New Hampshire-Maine border when he noticed what he originally thought was an albino lobster, something even rarer than the blue-tinged version. Rob Royer, Aquarist and Marine Mammal Rescue Assistant at the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, told the Herald the odds of catching an albino lobster are roughly one in 100 million. “Every time we get a call about an albino lobster, I get a little skeptical just because they are so rare,” he told the paper. Though less rare than their albino cousins, “Blue lobsters are still pretty uncommon,” Royer said. “We’ll get about five or six calls every summer." Ward called the science center the same day he made the catch, offering to give them the lobster for display, Fox 25 Boston reports. It wasn’t totally blue, which added to the rarity. "This one was whitish on the bottom which I haven't seen many of before," Royer told the station. Royer said Ward’s lobster will eventually go on display in Seacoast Science Center’s “exotic” lobster tank as soon as it gets adjusted to the center’s tanks and water. He said it currently has another blue lobster on display, a bright orange lobster and a "calico" lobster. Ward’s first mate Jango Troy told the paper it was great to see a different kind of lobster. “You see so many lobsters that are alike, day in and day out on the boat,” said Troy, a Portsmouth resident. “When you happen to see one that’s different, it really sticks out.” Ward’s lobster isn’t the only one that has “stuck out” recently. Within the last year, a Massachusetts fisherman caught his second blue lobster, and an even rarer yellow lobster was discovered in New York. IP: Logged
ahwt Posts: 2377 Registered: Mar 2003	posted 07-24-2017 02:50 PM Agleopar, Thanks for the information on making shell bowl ladles. The hand chasing is pointed out on some web sites that have similar ladles pictured. I think this should be noted and next time I have an opportunity I would like to compare one made on a die and one hand chased. The blue lobsters really are unique creatures. Remember though that the odds of winning the Powerball are 1 in 292,201,338 so one or even three in one million for blue lobsters is a different game. There are also blue crabs and blue crayfish, but they are not so rare. Agleopar have great time on your vacation. IP: Logged
cbc58 Posts: 341 Registered: Aug 2008	posted 07-24-2017 02:58 PM Agleopar - thank you for the information on bowl construction. Am curious if you know if this particular ladle bowl would have started out with a sheet of silver of specific thickness... and if so... would a silversmith have to make that themselves or could they purchase it from someone? Would it have been made on a drop forge like in the picture at Old Newbury crafters? Never seen a blue lobster before... IP: Logged
agleopar Posts: 850 Registered: Jun 2004	posted 07-24-2017 10:08 PM Cbc58 all hand forged spoons, forks and ladles start from different sized ingots not sheet. It is quite easy to melt and pour ingots from scrap silver. On a ladle the work is forging out the bowl to the required width without getting it too thin. The drop hammer at Old Newbury is used to form the bowl not hammer the ingot. If a shop is big enough it usually has a drop hammer but a small one would do it by hand. IP: Logged
agphile Posts: 798 Registered: Apr 2008	posted 07-27-2017 05:06 AM Sinking the bowls of soup ladles at the workshop of Francis Higgins and Son in London in the 1930s. I thought this photo was relevant to the topic but it has taken me a while to track it down. It was published in The Finial (journal of the Silver Spoon Club of Great Britain) back in Sept/October 2005. It had been provided by the late and much missed Alan Kelsey. Alan had been the foreman spoonmaker at C J Vander. Francis Higgins was merged into the Vander workshop in the years following WW2 as the demand for hand forged silver declined. IP: Logged
agleopar Posts: 850 Registered: Jun 2004	posted 07-28-2017 08:27 AM Agphile, I love process shots like this. It is a great regret that I did not shift myself and try to visit Vanders in the early 70's. I did go to a number of shops - Garrards and a few smaller ones. But Vanders still was making spoons and trays! As to the image, I always tell students to use the biggest hammer to get the job done quickly. This is a great example! IP: Logged
cbc58 Posts: 341 Registered: Aug 2008	posted 07-29-2017 01:00 PM thank you for the pic and info. very interesting and really makes me appreciate the effort put in to making older pieces. IP: Logged

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