Old sifter spoon identification

[dinio]

Hi,

I have a sifter spoon which seems to date back to the very beginning of 18c, and which is hard to identify for me.

Here is a picture of the spoon:



It has very beautiful details including a perfectly intact gilt bowl :



My first question is about the name of this kind of spoon, and its usage.

Next comes the identification problem. The hallmarks comprise 4 marks :
- the closest to the bowl is the maker's mark half rubbed on the right
- then comes a rubbed Britannia mark which can be recognized thanks to its upper right corner
- then there is a date letter which is completely worn,
- then comes a lion's head erased, worn on the right, but still legible

Here is a picture of the marks:


According to my documentation, the Brittania mark combined with the lion's head mark lead me to think that this spoon has been assayed in London in the period 1697-1719.

The date letter is not very useful, and I cannot guess which letter shape could correspond to the faint remains I can read.

Finally the makers mark could be useful for the identification even if incomplete. But I have no precise documentation to find a maker in this period.

Can anyone help for this identification ?

Was such a spoon common at that time ?


Any help will be appreciated.

Many thanks,
Dinio
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[Granmaa]

What a confusing piece!

First of all, it is clear that the decoration of the spoon was done later, probably in the Victorian period. Also, sugar sifter spoons only appeared in the middle of the 18th century, and rarely so at that. Have a look at the point where the stem joins the handle and see if you can see any solder joins; it is my guess that a bowl from a later spoon has been attached to the earlier stem. Although perhaps a table spoon could be reshaped. Is the bowl thick?

As for the maker and date: there is a maker in Grimwade's called John Millington (2037) who has a similar mark; he entered his mark in 1718. I could not find another piece of his on the internet, but I did find one by a "John Millingham" from 1718, and Grimwade doesn't list him so they might be the same person. Unfortunately, the site does not give a picture of the hallmarks, but I will see if I can get them.
Here's the link: (admin edit - no commercial links)
It is the 17th spoon from the top.
The date letter on your spoon could be the 1718 C upside down.

Miles
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[dinio]

Thanks Miles for your remarks and your help.

I did not imagine that the bowl could have been added later. I have looked at the junction between the bowl and the handle and I have not seen evidences of some soldering, but I am not a specialist.

The bowl is rather thin.

I have taken close photographs of this junction and, as you can see, the front is perfectly smooth and the gilt is very well done up to the decoration, whereas on the back you can notice some misalignement between the handle and the part which overlaps the bowl (I would call this the shoulder), the thickness is changing from the handle to the shoulder and the silver surface is somewhat bumpy.

Here are the pictures.





I have also taken a close picture of the lion's head erased, to help decide if the decoration was done after the marking. Here is the picture:



For what concerns the maker, I have found an MW mark in 'the book of old silver' by Seymour Wiler, p140 which is very similar (an M on the left, two dots in the upper part, and another dot in the lower part, with the same outline). The mark was entered in 1675, but I do not know who the maker was. Could it be the maker (of the handle at least) ?

Finally how would you call such a spoon ?

Thanks,
Dinio
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[2209patrick]

Here's a scan of one of Millington's marks.



Pat.
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[dinio]

Thanks Pat,

In my opinion the left part of the mark on the spoon does not contain an I. For me it is almost certainly an M.

Therefore your scan does not fit what we can see, and I do not think that
Millington is the maker.

Perhaps another mark could be found (like the one I suggested previously) ?

Dinio
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[Granmaa]

Dinio,

The mark provided by Pat is only one of Millington's later marks, here is his early mark.



The decoration is most certainly done after the marks. I'd like to know if it's possible to convert a table/dessert spoon bowl into this sifter bowl. Could you tell us how long the spoon is?

Miles
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[dinio]

Miles,

The bowl is 50 mm wide and has a depth of 15 mm. It is about 0.3 mm thick.

From the joint with the bowl, the handle is 13 cm long. Its width ranges from 6 mm to 21 mm. Its thickness from 2 mm to 1 mm.

The spoon weighs 41 g.

For what concerns the date letter I am not convinced by the upside down hypothesis. During this period, the bottom part of the date letter outline was made with 2 lines. But I can see only one line for this date letter mark : if you look at the three hallmarks, you will notice that their upper boundary are rather parrallel relative to each other (provided that you tilt clockwise the Britannia mark ). More important, the angle taken on the upper right corner of these marks seems to be constant. Therefore I think that there is only one line, which is homomorphic with the upper lines of the other marks.
Thus I think that the date letter is displayed in the right direction.

Looking at the patterns of the date letters of this period, the best similarity would be with 'a - 1697' 'e - 1700' 'A - 1704'.

I will try the mist and the LED light to see if I can get some more information and will let you know.

Regards,
Dinio
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[dinio]

I have made a lot of trials to decipher the date letter, using mist, red or green LEDs, laser, and I think I have found some clues.

Firstly I have identifed a thin vertical stripe which intersects the upper border of the mark in median position. You can see it in this picture:



Analyzing the small depressions which remains at the silver surface, I also identified that this stripe is continued vertically down to the bottom of the mark. See picture:



I know that it is not obvious to see this line and I must say that I am not 100% confident in its existence. I am only 95% confident.

Assuming that this line is real and divides vertically the mark in its center, it can only correspond to the years 1698, 1700, 1702, 1709 or 1711.

Then if we consider that we have a circular shape in the upper part of the mark, we can discard 1700 because it is not circular in this area.

Analyzing visually the depressions and using very faint clues, I have made the following priority list:
- 1702: most probable due to a triple intersection on the vertical line
- 1711: same probability than 1702
- 1709: less probable because there is no symetry in the depressions
- 1698: not probable at all, because I think that the right part of the letter is filled and not empty like in this 'C'.

So my best guess is 1702 or 1711 with the same probability.


Was Millington's mark entered in these years ?

For what concern the possible soldering of the bowl, I thought that if it is true, than we would have to different alloys: sterling(92.5%) for the bowl and britannia(95.8%) for the handle. Could it be possible to test this difference ?
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[Granmaa]

Don't forget to use the spoon itself for dating. The stem is Hanoverian pattern which first appeared about 1710; c.1700 was the period of trefids and Dog Noses.
However, you'll notice that your spoon has a single drop (where the bowl meets the stem), these came about c.1730 before which time rat-tails were the fashion. This is why I think the bowl and drop may have been soldered on.
Another possibility is that the spoon was made c.1730 and the maker was still using the Britannia standard, which was uncommon but not unheard of. This isn't too likely.

If there is an accurate method of distinguishing between 92.5 and 95.8 then it wouldn't hurt to try.
Also, have a closer look for any solder joins (don't forget to breath on it). Of course, sometimes solderers covered the joins by electro-plating the area, so it might not be easy.

Miles
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[Granmaa]

PS Millington entered his mark in 1718.
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