posted 04-03-2002 05:11 PM            

Neat spoon, certainly 17th century Dutch or Scandinavian in feel. I have to ask, though, how does the patina look on close inspection with a magnifier? Is it convincing? It may just be the lighting, but the spoon looks almost too good to be that old. The detail on the hoof is so crisp. Things like this were reproduced, so there is always the possibility that it is not what it seems. The patina will tell the story, though. Let us know:-)

Brent

posted 04-07-2002 11:54 AM            

If you are convinced, I am too. The more I look at it, the better it looks. I would love to see it in person someday.

For comparison, here is a German reproduction spoon from the late 1800's. Sorry the pictures aren't the greatest, but I sold this quite a while ago. The piece appeared to be sand cast in two pieces and joined. The roughness from the sand mold, plus some crude burnishing, created a piece that really looked "old". It was convincing, and fooled me initially, but on close inspection the "wear" wasn't real. The spoon may well have been based on an authentic piece.

Those of you who have Rainwater's SPOONS OF THE WORLD can find illustrated a full set of these apostle spoons, albeit with different bowl shapes.

Brent

posted 04-07-2002 10:59 PM            

Sand casting would have been the technique of choice for making the handle in the 17th century. Filing and chasing would have refined the casting and the "fur" of the leg would have been wriggled with a flat graver. The bowl would have been hammered from an ingot and sunk into a bowl shape with hammers in a stump and over a stake. The handle would have been then soldered onto the bowl and then finished and engraved for the patron.

posted 07-26-2004 01:30 PM            

This one, of Roman style, is of base metal, not silver. It is of a nonferrous metal, grey in color, quite hard, and not especially heavy, so not a pewter/lead alloy, but may be a higher quality pewter without lead. It is not latten (brass) or bronze. It also bears encrustations over its surface, but shows no pitting.

I stumbled upon it in an antique mall a number of years ago, and purchased it as a style example for only a couple of dollars, thinking it a late copy or reproduction. It was not until I began to clean what I thought was corrosion from between the "toes" of the cloven hoof, did I realize that it was in fact a sandy dirt, indicating that the spoon had been buried or submerged in an anoxic environment, and might indeed be quite ancient. Old Roman spoons turn up with some frequency in "digs" in England and elsewhere in what had been the old Roman Empire, or have been recovered from salvaged sunken shipwrecks. This one looks much like a Pompeiian example illustrated in fig. 17 of Emery's European Spoons Before 1700, and is the same size (6 in, or 15 cm). How old it actually is, or how long it might have been buried, or if it is even Roman or Pompeiian, I have no idea.

posted 03-20-2005 06:13 PM            

quote:

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I plan on making several of these in a smaller size and with my mark to give as gifts and to teach myself the skilles required to make them. They will each bear my mark as well. I will share with the forum the results.

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Fred: Did you ever get around to making your apostle spoons?

posted 03-28-2005 02:38 PM            

(Not enough hours in the day for all my interests).....