Unusual Gorham Decorative Piece - What is it exactly?

[ronenros]

Hi Everybody,

Has anybody out there ever seen a piece like this before? It looks like a spoon with a major bend in the handle, but the piece is completely pierced and worked. It's also quite large, with a length of 9 1/2" and bowl width of 5 3/4" - it weighs 10 oz. I think that it is purely a decorative piece, but any musings are welcome. Also, I think that those are 20th century marks, according to the Gorham dating chart on this site, but it looks older - there isn't anything resembling a date cypher on the spoon except for the A before the number 1836 - could this date to 1868 and I am misinterpreting the chart?
X
X

[dragonflywink]

One of Gorham's cast pieces, if I recall correctly, it's a bon bon server; believe the "A" prefix was used starting in 1898, extremely uncommon to see a date mark on flatware, they were used on holloware.

~Cheryl
.