Featured Toddy spoons : advice on marks, etc

Good Day All

I have a set of six toddy spoons that belonged to my Great Grandmother. I will attach photos of one the spoons and its hallmarks. I have a number of queries and would appreciate it if anyone would provide information/advice.

1. I'm battling to identify the hallmark correctly. It appears to me to be Newcastle but there is no Leopard's head. I did read somewhere that smaller items do not always have complete marks. Is this correct?

2. Assuming it is Newcastle, what is the year? The year stamp is an M in a square with clipped corners. That could make it 1851/2. But the sovereign's head duty mark appears to be uncrowned and looking to the right whereas according to Jackson it should be crowned and facing left!

1826/7 also looks wrong because that year had no shield on the date stamp and also no three-castles stamp!

1802/3 has the sovereign uncrowned and facing right (which is good) and the lion passant is in a shield that has a curly bottom (which is also good) but the picture in Jackson seems to show a date letter in a box without clipped corners (which is bad). I see that other letters in that sequence do have clipped corners so perhaps the printing is just not accurate in Jackson? Overall, this looks the best bet to me.

But the marks for 1802/3 do not follow the same sequence as in Jackson - is this significant?

3. Can anyone identify the maker?

4. What were toddy spoons actually used for - this is a set of six which suggests that each guest was supplied with his or her own spoon. Why does one need a spoon for a toddy? And why is it shaped like a ladle?

The photos will follow below (I hope!). One shows the front of the spoon, another shows all the marks together, and others are closer photos of some of the marks.

Thank you all in advance.

Michael

 

Someone who knows more will be along I'm sure. How about Thomas Wheatley? That would make your earlier date possibly correct.

http://www.925-1000.com/dlNewcastle2.html#M

 

I wondered about Thomas Wheatley's "TW" mark. I discounted the idea because when I look at the stamp with the naked eye it looks like a single "W", no "T". But taking a fresh look at the close photo there is a smudge on the left but I can't make out if it is just a smudged frame or a damaged letter.

It seems my maternal ancestors were fond of toddys because the wear on the marks suggests they were often used .

 

Welcome, Michael!

Forgive me that I do not know the book you are referencing, but I believe you may have either misread some of the information, or it is incorrect in some areas. You really need to analyze and identify each of the Quality, City and Duty marks before you try to get the year and finally the maker.

You might want to read through the page in this link before proceeding - http://www.925-1000.com/british_marks.html



1. Quality - Your mark shows the Lion Passant, left facing, for sterling.

2. City Mark - Yes it appears to be Newcastle. Only London has a leopard's head (as it's City Mark), so the fact that there isn't one, is correct.

3. Duty mark (aka sovereign's head) None of the sovereign's head Duty Marks is wearing an obvious crown - and what should be the sovereign on yours is so worn that it's really difficult to say which way he or she is facing. Note the different hair, clothing, angle of the nose shown in the examples to see whether that helps at all to narrow it down. You have a set of 2 spoons. Are they all this worn?

4. Now we get to the year. Since many of the Newcastle M's are similar capitals, you'll need to look at the details - serif or not? Thin upright lines with sharp serif "feet" or not? And then finally the knocked off corners which you already noticed.

5. I agree that maker's mark appears to be only a W, but if others of the spoons have more on the left side, that would help.

 

Ummm, the Newcastle assay office, as did a few others, used the crowned leopard-head in addition to their other marks (if I recall correctly, it was a royal guarantee of sorts), but wouldn't be too concerned about it being missing on smaller spoons. I don't have my British hallmark references available to help sort out the dates, but from what I can see, suspect it's probably 1802/03, as Bakersgma suggests, checking to see if some of the marks are more clear on the other pieces might be helpful...

'Toddy ladles' is really a better term, and yours are in the Old English pattern - there are two types of toddy ladles, the larger long-stemmed type, usually with a non heat conducting handle of something like baleen, wood, ivory, etc., that would have been used to dip the toddy out of a good sized bowl into the glasses, and the smaller ones like yours, usually around 6"-7" long, and also occasionally found with handles of baleen, etc., or even entirely of wood. Were your ancestors Scottish? The use of sets of toddy ladles was more common in Scotland, where the gentlemen would mix their whisky, sugar and hot water in a tumbler, stirring it with the ladle and then using it to dip out a portion into a glass, sometimes sharing, but often just for themselves...

Here is a set of three similar to yours,with Edinburgh 1806/07 marks: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Edinburgh-...toddy-ladles-James-McKay-1806-7-/262755512263

~Cheryl

 

Thank you, Cheryl! I can see that I was way too travel-tired last night to be trying to work on this query. (And it was the OP who suggested 1802-3, not me. I hadn't discounted it altogether, though, and sharper eyes this morning do have me leaning that way.) By comparing the duty mark on these spoons to the examples on 925-1000, the 1786-1821 George III stands out as the most likely.

Additional pictures, especially of the maker's mark, would still be a good idea.

 

I guess I was thinking there might be an additional initial before the W and I was guessing T. But maybe not

 

Hm. Wheatley's mark wasn't registered until 1824? How about Thomas Watson (whose range began before 1800)?

http://www.silvermakersmarks.co.uk/Makers/Newcastle.html#TW

 

I was imagining other pieces might have a clearer "T" but op says no additional letter is visible so I'm thinking I'm seeing cloud pictures again

 

That one picture sure looks like there's something there - and either a T or an I to me (this morning.) Worn marks often require a certain amount of imagination to decipher.

I'm just doing a little advance research, hoping for more pictures.

 

Thank you everyone for your comments. I hope to respond in more detail, with further photographs, tonight.

M

 

Thanks again for all those who have commented. A number of requests for further photos have been made so I have photographed the makers marks on all six spoons, which I will post here. There are six spoons but ten photos because sometimes the mark looks different depending on whether the spoon is lying with its bowl to the left or to the right so for those spoons there are two photos each. I will have to split these photos into two posts in order to keep to the eight-photos-per message limit.

The first and second photos are of the SAME SPOON, yet in the first the maker looks like a simple W and in the second the maker looks like there could be something before the W!

Photos 5 and 6 are different spoons and in both of those it is clear that the maker's mark is only a W. So it's rather confusing.

Batch 1 of makers marks:

 

Batch 2 of makers marks:

 

If I photograph the marks with my macro lens for best detail (as I have done for the above photos) I can't fit the entire mark in one photo. So here are a few specimens of the date letter, duty stamp, and Town marks (some spoons have badly worn marks and I have not posted them):

 

It does look like there is something there. Not sure what, maybe it is IW.

 

Thank you for taking the time to comment in detail.

The book I was referring to is Sir Charles Jackson "English Goldsmiths and their Marks". In the days before the internet it was the principle source on English marks, I believe. I searched for years for a copy and eventually found a reprint, which has a slightly different title. I'll post a copy of the cover.

Regarding the use of a town mark and a Leopard's Head in addition to the lion passant, date, and maker's marks - this seems to be a feature of Newcastle. You can see an example at the top of the relevant 925-1000 page and I will post a photo of the relevant page from Jacksons. I read somewhere recently (where ?) that this was the result of badly drafted legislation that at one time seemed to forget that there were provincial assay offices in addition to London and stipulated (or appeared to stipulate) that there must be a Leopard's Head.

I must have another good look at the Newcastle M's as you suggest and will do so later. I have been busy taking more photos of the marks as several commentators have suggested.

Michael

 

Thank you for your comment, especially the information on the use of Toddy Ladles. I've never seen a toddy and perhaps should try mixing myself one some day

The spoons came from my Grandmother but I don't know whether they originated from her husband's family (Scottish ancestry) or her family (Anglicised Dutch ancestry). I live in South Africa and my family have been here in some cases since the 18th Century.

 

Thanks, Michael! I did notice that several of the smaller provincial office sections of one of the best maker's mark sites for UK marks (silvermakersmarks.co.uk quoted in my post #8 above) does show the leopard head in addition to the city mark for quite a long period of time. Unfortunately I had not refreshed my memory of that detail when I was writing my first post.