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tlineopen  American Silver before sterling
tline3open  Basket of Flowers Master Salt Spoon

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Author Topic:   Basket of Flowers Master Salt Spoon
bascall

Posts: 1629
Registered: Nov 99

iconnumber posted 11-01-1999 03:41 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for bascall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Here's a spoon that I just bought and cannot
definitely identify the maker. The metal is fairly thin, but otherwise it's in very good condition. Any help would be very much appreciated.

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ahwt

Posts: 2334
Registered: Mar 2003

iconnumber posted 07-10-2007 01:01 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ahwt     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Andrew Comstock Benedict and Egbert Scudder are listed as partners in WEV's listing. They were located at 28 Bowery NY, NY. I cannot locate any listing that shows their mark, but it may have been B & S.

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FWG

Posts: 845
Registered: Aug 2005

iconnumber posted 07-10-2007 02:45 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for FWG     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The Darling Foundation volume gives only a full-name mark for Benedict & Scudder (and suggests that the partner there was Martin rather than Andrew Benedict, but I haven't gone to the original directories to see if they say which it was). Other B&S candidates from Darling: Barton & Smith (Utica 1829-31); Benedict & Squire (NYC 1839; and conceivably even Benedict & Son (NYC c.1840). The latter two also have full-name marks; no mark is given there for Barton & Smith. The Utica partnership of Barton & Porter did use a B&P mark, which may lend some weight that direction, but I cannot confirm the firm of Barton & Smith that Darling lists in Cutten's NY booklet or the Fountain Elms Utica pamphlet.

Ensko lists a Browne & Seal in Philadelphia c.1810, but again with full-name marks. There's a Beach & Sanford in Connecticut that apparently used B&S, but in the 1780s so not likely here.

I seem to remember hearing about someone doing a study of the swages used for basket-of-flowers and sheaf-of-wheat patterns, tracing them to certain regions, but can't remember any details. The pseudo-marks here might also help, although I can't make them out well enough from the photo....

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ahwt

Posts: 2334
Registered: Mar 2003

iconnumber posted 07-10-2007 06:02 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ahwt     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
John McGrew had an article on Basket of Flowers variations in the Mar/Apr 1989 issue of Silver Magazine.

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swarter
Moderator

Posts: 2920
Registered: May 2003

iconnumber posted 07-10-2007 06:33 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for swarter     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
There is an unpublished initial mark for Browne and Seal in combination with their full name mark, but it is different from this one, having no periods. In any event, their brief partnership may well have been too early for this pattern to have been in use.

There is a previous discussion of the basket of flowers swages in this thread.

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bascall

Posts: 1629
Registered: Nov 99

iconnumber posted 07-10-2007 08:49 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for bascall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
[QUOTE]Originally posted by swarter:
[B]There is an unpublished initial mark for Browne and Seal in combination with their full name mark, but it is different from this one, having no periods. In any event, their brief partnership may well have been too early for this pattern to have been in use.

Thank you for the update on this item. Sadly, it has been out of my hands for quite some time now. I have managed to give my daughter a piece of flatware with the basket of flowers motif and my son a piece of flatware with the sheaf of wheat motif. Neither have a tremendous interest in early american silver, but they've both made a special place for those gifts in their homes.

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