Enamelled coffee spoon set: mysterious connection between Mappin & Webb and Turner & Simpson?
Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 4:40 pm
Hi to you all fellow forum participants.
Hopefully my thread does not break any forum policies which I looked through. Please forgive me if I did as being a non-English speaking person (I am Russian) it is sometimes hard to understand this beautiful language.
There are couple of questions I would like to ask about a sterling silver coffee spoon set I bought a year ago or so. It was hallmarked in Birmingham hence I have chosen this forum section. These spoons beautiful enamel work on their bowls (let’s just forget about Faberge for a while). Please take into account all enamel is identical just as the spoons but there is one big mystery and another one just a bit smaller.
So what is that mystery if mystery at all. The spoons were advertised as renowned Mappin & Webb and they came with an original box.
The big mystery is that one of the spoons shows a completely different manufacturer. It is not Mappin & Webb as I would expect but Turner & Simpson. The date code is the same (a "J" date code standing for 1933) as on M&W spoons.
Let me remind (forgive me for saying this but it is what I actually told myself when found this out) that all the spoons are identical: I compared shapes of their bowls, transitions and handles and even tried to point differences in enamel decoration but there were none. I am 100% positive the bowl is original to handle as a) enamel work confirms that & b) no signs of reattachment can be seen.
So I thought these companies may have been in partnership but I was not able to find any confirmation of that. Then I tried to find some pieces made by T&S just to see what this manufacturer could offer to a consumer. I was quite surprised to see the company made enamelled ware to include powder compacts, cigarette cases etc. & spoons were among them.
But this is not the most interesting part of the story. I managed to find an identical set (just like mine) of coffee spoons entirely made by T&S which was sold at DuMouchelles back in 2014 (September, 13). One can think that DuMouchelles’ set is the one I have but thankfully that one has an “M” date code for 1936 which means it is a different one. I can imagine somewhere out there could be more of set like mine this being just one of some.
This fact can partially answer the question how come 1 spoon from my set appears to be made by T&S and not by M&W. The M&W one was lost and later an identical T&S saved the set of six.
That is a good story but still is it really possible that T&S could legally make exactly the same items as M&W? (I am not talking about some resemblance as the pieces are just identical). I just can not imagine T&S could simply copy M&W and the latter felt positive about that. So again it leads to a question whether such an important company as M&W could put another manufacturer to do some certain pieces marked as M&W (nowadays commissions like this happen here and there). I really am curious about the situation and I think I feel it is not an ordinary replacement, it is more than that.
I plea if someone knows the answer or would like to make an assumption of his own.
You may have forgotten but there is a smaller mystery. I am certain it is no big deal but I saw that not all handles (not the bowls!) have sterling silver & date hallmarks (two spoons lack these hallmarks). Is there an answer how could this happen? I can only guess it was not obligatory to place hallmarks there so manufacturers were free to decide whether to duplicate sterling silver and date codes or rather not.
I enclose all photos and I do hope their quality is enough to come further. Forgive me for bad macros but I tried as hard as I could.
Thanks in advance for your valued attention & I hope we can come to conclusion.
Hopefully my thread does not break any forum policies which I looked through. Please forgive me if I did as being a non-English speaking person (I am Russian) it is sometimes hard to understand this beautiful language.
There are couple of questions I would like to ask about a sterling silver coffee spoon set I bought a year ago or so. It was hallmarked in Birmingham hence I have chosen this forum section. These spoons beautiful enamel work on their bowls (let’s just forget about Faberge for a while). Please take into account all enamel is identical just as the spoons but there is one big mystery and another one just a bit smaller.
So what is that mystery if mystery at all. The spoons were advertised as renowned Mappin & Webb and they came with an original box.
The big mystery is that one of the spoons shows a completely different manufacturer. It is not Mappin & Webb as I would expect but Turner & Simpson. The date code is the same (a "J" date code standing for 1933) as on M&W spoons.
Let me remind (forgive me for saying this but it is what I actually told myself when found this out) that all the spoons are identical: I compared shapes of their bowls, transitions and handles and even tried to point differences in enamel decoration but there were none. I am 100% positive the bowl is original to handle as a) enamel work confirms that & b) no signs of reattachment can be seen.
So I thought these companies may have been in partnership but I was not able to find any confirmation of that. Then I tried to find some pieces made by T&S just to see what this manufacturer could offer to a consumer. I was quite surprised to see the company made enamelled ware to include powder compacts, cigarette cases etc. & spoons were among them.
But this is not the most interesting part of the story. I managed to find an identical set (just like mine) of coffee spoons entirely made by T&S which was sold at DuMouchelles back in 2014 (September, 13). One can think that DuMouchelles’ set is the one I have but thankfully that one has an “M” date code for 1936 which means it is a different one. I can imagine somewhere out there could be more of set like mine this being just one of some.
This fact can partially answer the question how come 1 spoon from my set appears to be made by T&S and not by M&W. The M&W one was lost and later an identical T&S saved the set of six.
That is a good story but still is it really possible that T&S could legally make exactly the same items as M&W? (I am not talking about some resemblance as the pieces are just identical). I just can not imagine T&S could simply copy M&W and the latter felt positive about that. So again it leads to a question whether such an important company as M&W could put another manufacturer to do some certain pieces marked as M&W (nowadays commissions like this happen here and there). I really am curious about the situation and I think I feel it is not an ordinary replacement, it is more than that.
I plea if someone knows the answer or would like to make an assumption of his own.
You may have forgotten but there is a smaller mystery. I am certain it is no big deal but I saw that not all handles (not the bowls!) have sterling silver & date hallmarks (two spoons lack these hallmarks). Is there an answer how could this happen? I can only guess it was not obligatory to place hallmarks there so manufacturers were free to decide whether to duplicate sterling silver and date codes or rather not.
I enclose all photos and I do hope their quality is enough to come further. Forgive me for bad macros but I tried as hard as I could.
Thanks in advance for your valued attention & I hope we can come to conclusion.