Featured Elles sont belles (they are beautiful)

Good evening everyone,

I've been terribly busy lately (silver and otherwise) and finally got a break to post something beautiful on the forum. To be completely honest, I've been overrun with silver finds, and I never quite know how much to post and how much to "simply acquire without mention." This find was an easy one, as it's just lovely and I figured I would share. Short story: I saw a listing that had been up for quite some time, and asked for additional information. Got some extra photos, made a drive, and here's what I snagged for the modest price of $35. PS the entire set is 950 purity with Minerva marks with the 1 next to the eyes, I hope you enjoy (I have so many more things I've gotten recently, I hope to get them posted soon):

 

Don't worry Mr N8...........we don't take it like you are bragging....or have your nose in the air ....
& it's interesting to see what you've found !!!

 

I LOVE seeing your beautiful purchases Nate .. Keep 'em coming !!! ... Joy.

 

Somebody had NO clue. Gotta love it when that happens!

 

Absolutely accurate. And what was more surprising, is the listing had been up for a long time (perhaps a month) and no one had managed to sniff it out yet. To be fair, you would have to ask to see a few photos of the backs to really know, but there were five clues if you looked at just the front of the pieces:

Clue 1. The first clue is the style of the handle, and while this style has clearly existed in sterling and in plate, it's certainly a possibility worth exploring further.

Clue 2. The next clue I considered, was the fact that there's a variety of sizes, all the way down to relatively small spoons in the exact same style. This suggested to me that this may be an older set of flatware, as I've seen a fair share of Rogers in this style, but I don't recall seeing multiple sizes of spoons that often.

Clue 3. Now we get some signals from the actual pieces. I love to see monograms, and I love it more when I see some blank pieces and some monogrammed pieces. This suggests a higher probability of real silver to me.

Clue 4. As I took a closer look at the forks, I see the tines are far from perfect, and they don't match up well in the set. This is a great thing, as modern manufacturing likely wouldn't allowed for such an obvious set of defects:



Clue 5. The way the end of the spoon bowl is finished is something I haven't seen in modern styles; this flattened end with an almost sharp edge looks like an old style of production to me.



Hopefully this shows how you can put together the clues with limited information. Here are the original photos I had to work with to reach out and ask for additional info:

 

Great buy, especially the .950 fineness! Given the variety of marks and small differences in size, it's obviously assembled, likely put together over several years - the only mark a quick search identified was the 'LL-with-rabbit', appears to be Laurent Labbé working 1829-52, so points to probable 19th century manufacture for all - but given the nature of French hallmarks, finding the other makers and their working years would be the only way to really pin it down.

'Filets' is a classic French pattern, produced in both silver and silverplate, but can understand it prompting a closer look. Regarding the fork tines, the differences have nothing to do with manufacturing defects, they are all just worn to various degrees, the softer high quality silver contributing to their wear (but it does suggest many decades of use). The pointy extended tip on the spoons is typical of 19th century French silver and was used into the 20th century, it can also be found in less extreme form on other European spoons as well as American coin - the smallest spoon with the oval bowl was probably damaged or badly worn, and reshaped.


A 1911 Ercuis catalog page showing both the pattern and pointy bowls on silverplate spoons:




The fork in this Danish .826 silver youth set from 1913 shows the start of tine wear:



And this Danish serving spoon from the same period shows the less extreme pointy tip:

 

Thank you for the detailed extra information, it’s always wonderful to see the history of patterns and styles, and thank you for finding the approximate time period. And I should add a few details on the purchase:

If the items were super close to me, I would have gone to look at them just based on the clues above. Since they weren’t very close to me, I asked for additional photos of the backs, here’s what I got:



I barely even looked at the photo before I started making arrangements to pick them up. Based on previous discussions on this forum, I felt confident without even zooming in (of course I did zoom in) that I was looking at a Minerva mark and the diamond shaped makers mark made it likely French silver.