What-is-it question.CLXVII.

[2209patrick]

This sterling and glass piece was made by Gorham ( c.1895 ).
I estimate the length at 8 inches ( 20.32 cm.).

What was this shape meant to represent ?
What was this used for ?



Pat.
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[JLDoggett]

Wild guess here... a master salt, shaped like a birch bark canoe? Picturing what it would look like filled with salt making the glass appear as white. Would the salt spoons have been shaped like paddles?
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[2209patrick]

Hi Jim.

Yes, the shape was intended to resemble a canoe.

My reference does not call it a master salt.
It does hold something found on a dinner table.
There are no spoons shaped as paddles. Good idea though.
(For this you could have a small, dull, knife shaped as a paddle).

Pat.
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[JLDoggett]

I thought of butter, but then thought, "It is an odd shape for a butter-dish and for the period there is no holder for the master-butterknife (though those "feathers on the prow might have been meant as a rest.) Salt would make it a more realistic looking birchbark canoe..." Looking at the photograph more closely, that could be a slot on the sterm and that might have held the tip butterknife with the handle resting in the notch where those feathers attatch to the prow.

Either way it is still quite origional in design and would look great on the table of an old hunting lodge.
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[2209patrick]

My reference does call it a "Butter dish"

I also thought it looked to be of a later period.
However, Gorham was innovative and often ahead of other manufacturers.
You could be right about the feathers holding a butter knife.

Sorry to say, this is the only picture my reference provides.

Pat.
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