Spoon

This rare Irish provincial silver punch strainer took £14,000 at Lawrences’ latest sale in Crewkerne. Dated to c.1740-60, it is struck twice for Joseph Johns, one of only a handful of silversmiths working in Limerick in the middle of the 18th century.

The quarterly auction of silver and plated wares held by Fellows in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter on September 22 included a family collection of eight apostle spoons formed several generations ago.

Seventeenth century Dublin trefid spoons are extremely scarce. Last year a single rat-tailed example by Andrew Gregory, 1685, sold for €9000 at Adams of Dublin.

This rare Charles I spoon topped the latest sale of Scottish silver held by Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull, selling for £22,000.

ONLY two Scottish 17th century lace-back spoons are recorded by the National Museum of Scotland so this example offered by Dreweatts at Donnington Priory was quite a rarity.

PURITAN spoons are not uncommon survivors in English silver but, for reasons still largely unknown, Scottish examples are very rare. To date, only nine hallmarked or provincial examples are known.

WOOLLEY and Wallis silver specialist Alex Butcher is well known for his expertise in the spoon world, but his most recent offering at the Salisbury saleroom took the specialisation a step further.

BONHAMS’ latest silver auction was another sale of two parts. Around a third of it was devoted entirely to one specialist collecting field, early spoons, the bulk from one vendor, Mr Britton Smith.

When John Norie (d.2003) began his collection back in the 1950s, caddy spoons were not every collector’s cup of tea.

OFFERED at Edinburgh’s Royal College of Surgeons, a 169-lot section of Scottish provincial silver provided many of the highlights at Thomson Roddick & Medcalf’s (15% buyer's premium) March 29 sale.

WOOLLEY & Wallis sold the first tranche of the caddy spoon collection assembled over the past half century by John Norie on April 20.

Historians have spent many enjoyable hours attempting to decipher the symbolism of pictures on the back of Georgian teaspoons such as those illustrated right. Like the club tie or the secret society handshake, the picture back teaspoon was an English gentleman’s discreet method of signalling loyalties to potential sympathisers when serving afternoon tea.

The Caddy Spoon in the 20th Century, published by the Society of Caddy Spoon Collectors, Upper Nordens Clinic, Royal Oak Lane, High Hurstwood, Uckfield, East Sussex TN22 4AN, price £12.60 including p&p.

THE best seller at Tennants’ sale on November 22-23 in the Yorkshire Dales was consigned by a Yorkshire family with connections to the famous silversmith who made it.

Owners of silver spoons are generally believed to have a head start in life, and the continuing bouyancy of this market might keep a few heads above water in the coming months.

Sometimes the most famous names can be found in the unlikeliest places. Biddle & Webb auctioneer Nicholas Davies had been called out to view a Georgian drop leaf table in a local property but noticed this early trefid spoon, pictured, in a small box of cutlery.

UK: The most comprehensive and perhaps the finest collection of early silver spoons to appear on the market since the 1960s went under the hammer at Woolley and Wallis in Salisbury last Wednesday (October 25).