York JB&Co spoon. Made by exactly who?

[Essexboy Found]

I found this 10 centimetre long, not totally common York condiment/salt spoon a little while ago but just started to research it this week. No Guild mark, none of my York spoons have, but the lion is in that “provincial” rectangular cartouche and there is an indented duty head. Possibly a York spoon but with a JB in the maker’s mark it must have been York made, surely.



The UK website “silvermakersmarks” identifies “JB&Co” as York’s James Barber & Co, with work noted as dated 1821-24. My spoon carries the lower case “k” suggested to be 1821. “J” was not used at York for date lettering, so these “n” spoons were from 1824.



If you look at James Barber, he did have several silversmithing associates but at the time of the “k” spoon he was in a firm with William Whitwell.



This partnership with William Whitwell started 1812 but William Whitwell died 24th April 1823.

https://www.925-1000.com/forum/viewtopi ... 072#p64072

By 1825 James Barber was having work hallmarked in a concern with George Cattle II & William North.

So, who was JB&Co? The mark was in use after William Whitwell died. Was JB&Co the then formed concern? Contrary to this, the JB&Co mark was apparently used concurrently with the James Barber and William Whitwell mark as indicated by the “k” examples shown above from 1821. But must that be the case? There is an interesting note on the “silvermakersmarks” website regarding date letters used at that period “Date letters........k (1821) used 1821-1823". There do appear to be a lot of York “k’s” around.

Could my JB&Co spoon be from 1823-24? I always like to speculate.

Fishless

[dognose]

Hi Fishless,

Just a couple of points, James Barber took William Whitwell into partnership as from the 1st January 1814.

I think it may perhaps be wrong to assume that the Barber-Whitwell partnership ended at the date of the demise of William Whitwell, although it is likely it did, it may well have been a little earlier as Whitwell may have been ill for some time (his death notice in the 'Yorkshire Gazette' 26th April 1823 makes note of "after a painful illness") thus perhaps it may be possible that Barber may have styled the business and marked his work as JB & Co. prior to April 1823.

The 'JB & Co' mark has only been noted with the 'k' and 'n' letters, 'l' and 'm' were almost certainly never used and the 'n' used in 1824 to get the system back on track.

Trev.