posted 04-13-2000 10:01 PM            

My wife's Grand mother found a master butter knife in the dirt at what was their families "old homestead", no one in the family knew where it came from as the homestead was built in the 1850's.

Anyway this was several years ago, and when her grand mother passed away, my wife inhereated the few pieces they had collected together. She began scouring the antique store and other places trying to locate this pattern, without much luck. she had collected about 8-10 pieces...

I began about a year ago to search the web (Expencive mistake...!), since then we (I) have become what i used to kid her about, when she was dragging me around to all those places, a silver nut!

Our collection is over three hundred pieces, but we have still been unable to locate any information about what was actually made by alvin in the old orange blossom pattern.

we are trying to put together a complete 12 place setting collection, but have only been able to identify about 67 of the 110 different pieces.

I have tried to get information from the US patent office but they wat the actual patent number, and i cannot locate it.

If anyone has any information about this pattern, (really need a piece list), an old catalog, anything at all would be helpful.

I have talked to a number of dealers, libraries, even Gorham's historian Sam, without much sucess.

posted 03-12-2009 12:59 AM            

The design was done for Alvin Mfg Co while it was an adjunct of Fahys Watch Case Co.

Patent number: D37393