The following is a discussion of the Evolution of the Place Setting written by collectors having done research in only the sources readily available today. Real “experts” might find that we are in error in many places and we would certainly welcome anyone setting us straight where we might have erred. The purpose of this exercise is for all of us to learn, especially us.

Today one would most likely consider a basic place setting to be a knife, a place or dinner fork, a salad fork and a teaspoon. Extending this depends on the interest of the collector. For our collection we extend that to eight pieces to include a dessert or luncheon fork, a soup spoon, a flat butter spreader and a demi-tasse. We prefer the dinner size knife whenever possible.

While this place setting is fairly standard in the 20th Century, collectors of the 19th century will immediately note that it is difficult to find knives, salad forks and often individual butter spreaders for their patterns. There are very good reasons for this as we shall see, and here we need to launch into the history of the place setting.

The first Place Settings- The first flatware “settings” appeared in the sixteenth century in the form of spoons and knives that one might even carry with him when traveling on the road. Forks were pretty exotic and were first used by the Italians and French. The earliest “set” consisting of a matched tablespoon and fork that I have actually seen documented was of the “Trefid” style from England around 1693 in Pickford(1). About a decade later it became the style to drink tea and stir it with a smaller “teaspoon” and the place setting began to fill out with a “dessert set” which added an additional fork and spoon as shown below:

Hanoverian is the earliest “place setting” of more than three pieces that one might practically put together, it is from England and the pieces date from around 1715. It is called “Hanoverian” in honor of His Majesty George I of the German house of Hanover and is distinguished by the characteristic “rat tail” on the bowls of the spoons. The tablespoon measures 8 ¼ ” and was used for whatever porridge constituted the main course, there is a three pronged dinner fork of 7 ½” and a somewhat smaller three pronged dessert fork of 6 1/8” The dessert fork is usually the hardest piece to find and can sell for upwards of $300. The dessert spoon is 6 ½” while the teaspoon is diminutive at 4 ¾ ” reflecting the high price of tea. The Knife, of the “pistol Grip” style is probably the most interesting part of the story.

English crafts were strongly organized into guilds. The silver flatware was made by silversmiths and the real cutting knives by cutlers. Therefore there is no such thing as a Hanoverian knife of the 18th Century - one bought a separate set of these pistol grip knives – hollow silver handles with carbon steel blades to go with their silver forks and spoons.

This classic British place setting persisted for nearly 200 years until the end of the Victorian era. The British being very traditional, were slow to develop a variety of patterns. The rat tail went out of style by about 1750 (to be revived in the late 19th Century) , and the characteristic Hanoverian rib on the front of the pieces began to atrophy and became “Old English” and only at the turn of the 19th century did variations of the “fiddle” appear with threads and shells for variety. The three pronged fork gave way to the four pronged types about the same time. These basic few patterns were adopted universally throughout Europe, with the fiddle actually being the French mainstay from the middle of the 18th century.

While the purist might demand that the pieces for a place setting be of the same year and maker, the British were very consistent in their production of these patterns allowing one to assemble a very uniform looking set from different makers over a 50 year period.

Illustration
Classic British Patterns
Hanoverian, Old English, Fiddle, Fiddlethread, Kings

The Colonies.

Those of you who collect coin silver will be aware that it took forever for the fork to make it’s way to the colonies, while teaspoons and tablespoons abound. The earliest “place setting” we have been able to put together dates to about 1835.

These were normally copies of the classic British varieties of Fiddle and can include tablespoon, teaspoon, dessert spoon, dinner fork and dessert fork. As with the British these classic patterns were produced consistently allowing one to put together homogeneous looking sets from different makers. Following British tradition the silversmith did not make knives and it was common to purchase a set of pearl handled knives from a cutler. This practice continued until the late 19th century and complete sets of silver from mid century are normally found together with pearl handled knives. Therefore the excuse that “the old carbon steel didn’t last well” may be true, but the reality is that aside from some silver dessert knives, real cutting knives were just not part of “the set” for most of the 19th Century. If anyone out there really knows what knives were used in 1835, I would love to have the information.

The Third Fork Appears– The missing fork to our set, the salad fork, is generally described as being smaller than the dessert fork, usually under 6” with at least one thicker tine for cutting the lettuce, usually on the left side. Sometime around the 1850’s a third fork with this general description began to appear in silver place settings, but it wasn’t likely a salad fork. Prior to the advent of refrigerated boxcars around the late 1880’s, lettuce was a local experience and thus salad forks are rarely found. What we do find were three and four tined pastry forks, distinguished by a thick tine on the left to cut the pastry. These are available in a number of older sets and satisfy our collector’s need for the third fork in the set. An individual salad fork is documented in the Gorham 1888 (2) catalogue under St. Cloud & Old Masters. The salads look quite like the fish forks, which also have a thicker tine, but are a little smaller. Some manufacturers used the same fork for salads or pastry and so we will gladly accept any of the three- salad, fish or pastry as our third fork in the place setting. Turner gives the date of introduction of individual salad forks as 1880 as well as Pastry forks, while individual fish forks go back to 1860. I believe I have some pastry forks that are older and go back to the 1850’s. Does anyone know for sure?

Some examples are shown below:

The Medallion Is Born- John R. Wendt. In 1862 John R. Wendt was issued a design patent for die cut flatware bearing a medallion of the Roman Tradition. The innovation became so popular that 20 other manufacturers would follow the lead in the next decade and produce Medallion flatware. The style was revived in 1880 and finally died out around 1910. Due largely to Soeffing’s publication (3), Medallion today has it’s own legion of avid collectors.

Defining a place setting of 1862 Wendt Medallion offers some new opportunities.

The tablespoon was likely used for soup and the oval soup or dessert spoon if it exists is rare. Instead there is a pointed ice cream spoon. An additional innovation this decade is a demi-tasse or coffee spoon. I am not sure whether the small four tined fork with the thick left tine was used for pastry, pickles or salad, but I was happy to find it and include it in the setting. Silver tea or dessert knives are common for the patterns of this era, but it is likely that a pearl handled knife was use for serious cutting requiring a steel blade. While a master butter knife was a common serving piece by this time individual butter spreaders had not made an appearance.

The “Complete Sets”The 1890’s would produce the widest range of utensils for eating in history. One could not politely use fingers and if you could eat it there was a special piece to do it with. Shown below

is one of our earliest “complete sets” Gorham Old Medici. Again the useful 1888 Gorham Catalogue shows that at least by that time steel bladed knives of the pattern, individual butter spreaders, and genuine salad forks had made their appearance. The individual butter spreader has an interesting history which makes it one of the more difficult pieces in the early sets. While today the mark of a finer restaurant is an individual butter spreader on the bread and butter dish, this was not so in the 1890’s. The bread and butter dish with it’s individual spreader made it’s appearance in the luncheon set, but was not part of the formal dinner setting. China collectors of this period will find the B&B dish a challenge.

However attempting to put together such complete place settings of many other manufacturers of the 1875-1890 period without much success indicates that many patterns of the era did not include such pieces and the completion of the place setting took place at different rates in different patterns over a number of years. Many families sets still included pearl handled knives.

While the knives of the 1890’s may have been produced at the same rate as the all silver place pieces, the blades did not hold up well prior to the advent of stainless steel and were prone to rust, even when silver plated. Thus knives are a major challenge to completing the Victorian place setting. Often one will find older sets with modern knives and today it is not difficult to get the old blades replaced with new ones that are still of the old blunt style and just silver plated. It is a special prize for the collector to have a late Victorian knife which can be proven to be of the correct era. The Whiting Catalogue of 1896 now available in reprint (4) shows knives with the inscription “V (crown) R Joseph Rodgers & Sons Cutlers to her Majesty” indicating that some US manufacturers used English blades. I have found these also in Tiffany knives of the era. As the V R stands for Victoria Regina, if you find one of these in good condition, you have a true Victorian period piece, treasure it!

What is Available in this Pattern?While the above illustrations give some general guidelines for what pieces might be available by era, answering this question specifically for a given pattern and manufacturer is still perhaps the central issue for the place setting collector. Tere Hagen’s “Sterling Flatware” (5) lists several of the more artistic patterns as “n.f.l.”- not full line and the Unger Bros. Catalogue of 1904 (6) lists some of the true art Noveau pieces such as Evangeline and Cupid Sunbeam as “Spoon and Fork” patterns.

Certainly the best one could do is to have a contemporary catalogue for the pattern of interest. While pre 1900 catalogues are a rarity for the individual collector we are fortunate the Eden Sterling of Cincinnati is reproducing a number of the older catalogues. We have found the 1888 Gorham Catalogue and 1898 Whiting Catalogues to be invaluable as an example.

To be definitive for the wide range of patterns that interest collectors however will require a collaborative effort of significant proportions. Fortunately, such a project has begun with “The Book of Silver Flatware” (7). For each pattern analyzed, there is a list of pieces with an indication where the piece has actually been seen by the authors. Collectors do not purchase “The Book” as much as subscribe to it as later editions are updated with new “sightings”. With many collectors providing input the level of uncertainty will certainly decrease to everyone’s benefit.

You can add to the body of knowledge

In the Place Setting Forum you will find discussions of collectible patterns. In many of these there will be questions that we have asked such as "Is there an oval soup in Wendt Medallion?", or "Can you identify this pattern?" . If you know the answer we welcome you to submit the answer in the forum which will add to our body of knowledge. Above all, have fun hunting.

References

1. Pickford, Silver Flatware English Irish and Scottish 1660-1980, Antique Collectors Club Ltd., Woodbridge, Suffolk.
2. Gorham MFG Silversmiths Catalogue Year 1888- reprint Eden Sterling 7672 Montgomery Road, Cincinnati Ohio 45236. (800)385-3336
3. Silver Medallion Flatware , D. Albert Soeffing, New Books Inc. New York City, NY
4. Whiting Manufacturing Company- 1896- Reprint Eden Sterling Cincinnati OH. (800)385-3336
5. Sterling Flatware - An Identification and Value Guide, Tere Hagan P.O. Box 25487 Tempe AZ 85285
6. The Book of Old Silver, English American, Foreign, by Seymour Wyler, Crown Publishers Inc. NY.
7. "The Book of Silver Flatware, Marks and Patterns" SMP Publications, 353 W. 56th Street, MS 7-A, New York City, NY 10019.
8. "American Silver Flatware 1837-1910" Noel D. Turner, A.S, Barnes & Company N.Y (Currently available as reprint)
9. "Encyclopedia of American Silver Manufacturers" Dorothy T Rainwater, Schiffer Publishing , 77 Lower Valley Road, Atglen PA 19310
10. "Das deutsche Silber-Bestecke" by Reinhard W. Sanger from Spencer Marks. P.O. Box 303 East Walpole, MA 02032. (508) 668-6990