posted 09-04-2006 06:37 PM            

Hello all,

Just back from the Baltimore Antiques Show, with about 5 good pieces of thread fodder. First, does anyone recognize this mark? I show it straight on and inverted, as I'm not absolutely certain which way it should be viewed. I will show more pictures shortly, but I wanted to see if the mark alone rang a bell with anyone. It seems like I have seen it before somewhere, but I can't place it.

posted 09-05-2006 05:24 PM            

Well, here it is. The piece is a wonderfully battered bird-back teaspoon with a feather-edge handle. There are two sets of initials on the handle; a script "BP" above and a small, crude BG below. Most feather-edge spoons I have seen have feathering all the way up to the handle tip, which made me wonder if the BG were the original mono, and some of the feathering had been erased to add the large set of initials. However, the engraved lines that run along the inside of the feathering both curve out to the edge below the BP, and there are no obvious signs of tampering to my eyes. At any rate, if it was modified it was likely done quite early.

The real mystery is in the mark. There is no P&O maker listed in "Flights of Fancy", and I have been unable to locate a suitable partnership from the period in Flynt & Fales, Kane, The Yale Catalog, or any of the other reference books at my disposal. I have not seen this exact bird swage before, either. That said, the odd ridge in the mark just to the side of the P makes me wonder if the mark is an over strike.

Any ideas? It is a great old spoon.

posted 09-05-2006 07:41 PM            

There is an irregular area above the mark. Is/was there a second mark? Or a repair? It reminds me of an English spoon with lion passant and maker's mark only; this troubles me a bit, as I have seen more variations in feathering in English spoons than American, and the maker's mark is a bit close to the bowl for an American spoon with only one mark. However, the position could be related to the width of the punch relative to the width of the stem, which is more slender above.

I can find no listed partnerships that fit these initials. John Lawrence Otto, a goldsmith, was in a partnership with John Houlton and John Folk when he died in 1797. There seems to be little other information about his working career.

An interesting spoon.

posted 09-05-2006 09:45 PM            

Thanks for the replies. The irregularities in the stem are the result of some ham-fisted straightening attempts by some owner in the past. I do wish people would think before using pliers on a piece of metal!

I agree, it likely is an early example of a bird-back, 1770's or 80's. I forgot to mention, if we do agree that the mark should read P&O, then it is stamped upside-down, relative to the normal orientation of coin silver marks. To me, that seems another indication that the mark may be an overstrike.

The bird does most closely resemble Christian Wiltberger's swage, though as you say without the detail. I will pull out one of my Wiltberger teas to see how it compares.

As you say, an interesting spoon. That's why I bought it; I love a mystery, especially one with the potential to add something to our knowledge base.

Brent

posted 09-10-2006 09:45 AM            

Well, I finally dug out a Christian Wiltberger bird-back teaspoon for comparison. Although the composition of the bird swages are very similar, Wiltberger's bird has a noticeably longer neck. So, it isn't his.

As for the possibility of an overstrike, I'll defer to Swarter's experience. I personally have not seen many spoons with inverted marks, and one of those WAS clearly an overstrike. An inverted overstrike would seem to me to be a better way of obliterating the original mark. Also, there is the stray ridge to the side of the P, probably the result of a poorly cut die but again possibly a remnant of a previous mark. Finally, the fact that the mark seem to be unrecorded makes me wonder if it might be a merchant's mark, rather than a "maker". Anyway, that's my thinking on the subject.

posted 09-10-2006 01:42 PM            

My first thought on seeing the line along the side of the punch was that the die sinker (if we can call him that) began to cut the edge of the punch there, and may have decided it was too close to the edge of the P, and then widened it beyond that point. It doesn't really look like a "professionally" made die to me.

posted 09-25-2006 11:29 AM            

I believe you are on to something, Swarter. Here is a pair of bird backs, never monogrammed, never marked, never decorated. I would suppose these were made for the wholesale trade, to be marked and/or decorated by the eventual retailer. I expect that the wholesale trade was far more substantial than we like to admit. Also, much of the "sharing" of bird swages assumed by Fennimore and other authorities is probably just evidence of a thriving wholesale trade, where one maker sold unmarked spoons to several others for retail.