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I was just lucky enough to buy a decorative possibly “Arts & Crafts” teaspoon.The spoons finial has a small piece of “opal” in the representation of a flowering plant. I am not a botanist but I am guessing it could be a “bottlebrush” plant. I was encouraged to buy the spoon because I was intrigued by the maker’s mark, an “M” inside the image of the mainland of Australia.





I was familiar with “F.J.Mole” the Australian silversmith and I did know his usual illustrated mark was “M” inside a square cartouche. With this hyper styled spoon I thought a changed mark could be a style augmentation. “F.J.Mole” started in business in the 2nd decade of 20th century and there is still a company bearing this name now. I could not find any help on line and did contact F.J.Mole Silversmiths & Platers in Brisbane. They kindly quickly replied with the information that they believed the spoon was not by “F,J.Mole”.
Are there any more ideas on the forum to identify this “M” in Australia mark and maybe also the plant’s name?
Fishless

Hi Fishless,

The spoon was made by an Australian company named Carmelle. I've never been able to find out anything about them. Their production appears to be from, I guess, around the 1940's, 1950's period from the examples that I've seen.

Trev.

Hello, I recently saw on line, a boxed set of 6 Arts&Crafts styled spoons, with spoon bowls identical to the bowl of my spoon. I have an image of the box’s silk below and following that are more images of my original spoon. I read the lower left mark as "Hand Work".







Fishless

M for Melbourne in a convoluted map of Australia or the bay outline?