Irish Silver Stork Nips?

[DublinFusiler]

Hi,

Any assistance with this item would be appreciated.

They are 12cm in length and gilt (worn in some places)




Apologies for previous post - pictures too small.

[dognose]

Hi DublinFusiler,

The clue is in the Stork, it's a ribbon puller.

These were part of ladies sewing kit and this device was for pulling ribbons etc. through material, most commonly for threading a baby's diaper, thus the Stork connection.

Is there no maker's mark?

Trev.

[DublinFusiler]

Thanks Trev,

I cannot see a maker's mark.

Any idea as to the period, I certainly have not seen any before.

Karl

[amena]

According to Mr. Rocchini, owner of the site
http://www.amber-ambre-inclusions.info/
were pliers that were used to clamp the umbilical cord of the baby prior to cutting and were preserved to be later donated to the children in memory of their birth.


Regards
Amena

[scorpio]

Most likely sugar tongs although other uses are suggested. Refer http://aeneasryan.blogspot.ie/2015/03/s ... -rare.html

Same photos as you posted shown there and hard to add anything to what Aeneas Ryan says in this blog. I looked up my 500 years of Irish Silver book and the stork tongs in the National Museum are described as :
Dublin 1812; mark of John Teare, Jun.

Scissors type, the two member parts cast in the form of a stork, opening to reveal a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Novelty sugar tongs such as these were made in the 18th and 19th centuries, and were probably intended as christening gifts. Described occasionally today as a 'ribbon threader', it is as sugar tongs that John Teare's corresponding work was entered in the Assay Office records in 1812.

That last sentence is telling. John Teare made his as sugar tongs.

Gordon

[scorpio]

This morning, I was reading through an old 1972 Irish silver book by Robert Wyse Jackson and noted a reference in it relating to these stork tongs. He mentions that Dr. Kurt Ticher (an acknowledged expert on Irish silver), listed 'silver toys, sugar tongs (one 1810 stork tongs shows a baby being carried when the tongs is opened)' in an article titled Bits and Pieces of Irish Silver published in the J.R.S.A.I. 1962.

In his book Starting to Collect Silver, well known English silver dealer and author, John Luddington, shows a picture of various novelty sugar nips including a pair of stork sugar nips, London 1880. He comments, "The stork motif was popular in the middle of the eighteenth century and again from c1820, and it is possible that this form of sugar nips has also been used to facilitate the threading of needles."

Gordon

[amena]

There are many opinions on this type of pliers.
Another site
http://www.fcgapultoscollection.com/midfact.html
that classifies them as tools for women in labor, shows an object made of brass.

The shape and the material does not suggest sugar tongs.
Perhaps they were made with different materials and shapes for different purposes.
Amena