another Swiss army spoon

[dolpheus]

Hello,

somebody can help me with this tea spoon? I suppose, material is silver plated alpacca, manufacturer unknown to me.

I am interested if this was some official swiss army equipment or present for soldiers, or what. Also time of manufacturing remain unknown to me - it seems somewhat like art-nouveau, so somebody can suppose 20-th beginning, but it is somewhat inconsistent with spoons very good condition.

If i search on i-net, i dont have found any similarity.

Many thanks
M.

[AG2012]

Hi,
Not the military, Feldschützen guard and protect fields (agriculture).
I am sure you will have detailed info by Swiss members of the forum.
Cheers

[Joerg]

Hi dolpheus
This is a spoon from a "Schützenverein", a marksmen club. Marksmen clubs were very popular in Switzerland and are still popular. Many marksmen clubs named themselves "Feldschützen", field marksmen. The spoon here is from a club located in the city of Berne, in the Lorraine quarter.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorraine_%28Bern%29
The club does not exist anymore.
Spoons, whole or partial flatware sets, and cups were popular prizes for marksmen clubs and marksmen festivals.
Traditionally, each club had an "Endschiessen" with "Absenden", a years end shooting and an "end of year" celebration, where successful marksmen got their prizes. Such customized spoons or flatware sets were part of the prizes given there.
Generally, very common, usually silver plated, sometimes 800 silver. Yours is from a probably smaller club, I have not seen this spoon before.
To date it, we see a marksmen practicing with his military rife. I say it is a Schmid-Rubin K11 or G11, with less likeliness a K31. The K11 and G11 were introduced in 1911. This gives an earliest date. I would date the spoon in the 1930ies, give or take a decade.
PEKA silver plated items are found often on flea markets in Switzerland. However I have not done research on them.
Regards
Jörg