Featured Lily of the Valley Spoons:

Most of my silver is packed away and I expect it to be a year or two before I can get it back out, but when I have a bit of spare time, have been trying to photograph and inventory some of it, partially because I don't always remember what I have. Not too long ago, believe I got most, if not all, of the lily of the valley and other bell-shaped flower motif spoons done.

I started picking up bits of silver as a teenager in the mid '70s, and one day bought a teaspoon by Watson with a beautifully detailed Lily of the Valley, my birth-flower, it had an engraved 'C' and I used it every day, later I saw another Lily of the Valley spoon, this one by Whiting Mfg., the bowl acid-etched with a view of the Joliet Penitentiary complete with a tiny prisoner in stripes, it was before the Blues Brothers, but familiar to me from living in Illinois as a kid, and that was pretty much the beginning of my souvenir spoon collection (not to mention all sorts of other spoons and flatware).

First pic is detail of the 'Joliet' bowl on the Whiting spoon which is #3 in the second pic, pattern introduced in 1885, the Watson spoon is #1 in the third pic, design patent D36385 issued in 1903:


















The rest to follow...

 

~Cheryl

 

I am obsessed with the Danish Coffee Spoons, as well as the blue and green enameled spoons. Well really, I love them all and kudos to you on how excellently you cataloged them.

 

DragonflyWink, time to play 'What's My Line'-May I ask-
1.Who does your impeccable photography & layout ?
2.This looks like a layout for a beautiful Coffee Table Book-any plans to publish ?
3.Are you a recognized Expert in the spoon world ?
PS-These pics seem better than Sotheby's or Christies to me (just my opinion).
PSS-How did you come by your 'stage name' ?

 

Thanks! Couldn't resist either one of those coffee spoon sets, the Poulsen pieces are so attractive and usable, they actually live with my Int'l Spring Glory service, along with misc. serving pieces that I've used for decades.

I basically go for simplicity, there are matching pics of the backs and close-ups of marks, stored in folders on my laptop and the cloud...

~Cheryl

 

Oh my, I'm blushing! In answer:

1. I do it, doesn't seem impeccable to me, but I'll take the compliment. I sold online for long time and liked to provide clear images, these days I use my Galaxy S9 for most pics, my newer Galaxy S20 works well too, but I think I'm just used to the S9.

2. Heh, no plans to publish.

3. Believe some consider me an expert on silver, or I'm at least generally respected, I've been acknowledged in two books, but my contributions were pretty minor. Have been researching silver for close to half a century, since my teens (and still constantly learn new stuff), also participate in silver discussion groups, often picking the brains of other silver-geeks.

My handle is pretty old (also had three others when I was selling), I've loved and collected dragonflies since I was a kid, and my surname has a 'Wink' in it, endured all sorts of nicknames, then had a long-term relationship with a man whose surname had a 'Dink' in it, and we became 'Winky-Dink' (he used to tell people we met at 'Funny Last Names Anonymous').

~Cheryl

 

Cheryl-I love 'Winky-Dink', it reminds me of the kid TV characters of my wee days !
I think your pics are really superb,and yes with online sales-the photos you supply are your most eloquent sales pitch.
Amazing sampling of silver-a lifetime's dedication.I'd think a fair amount of museum worthy pieces here.
Really a very memorable post.

 

Hehe, we had a book from the show, can't recall what happened to it.

Geez, 'museum' reminded me I'd forgotten a piece (it has its own file).

Twenty years ago I took a shot on a spoon listed with little information and fuzzy pics, I was the only bidder and it was very inexpensive - when it arrived, my hunch was correct, an uncommon and desirable Gorham cast souvenir spoon. I contacted everyone I knew amongst spoon collectors, the only information given was that the only other known example was in the Gorham collection at RISD and nothing had been found regarding the meaning of its design - I sent it off to be photographed for an upcoming book on Gorham spoons.

For the next few years, continued researching, finally finding its story, eventually passing the information on to the author of the book after his first of many attempts to buy my spoon - he just let me know last year that he finally found a third example for his collection. A couple of years ago found another Gorham spoon with its 2015 receipt that I'd apparently tucked away in a jewelry box and forgotten (I have no memory of buying it) - turned out the Gorham book author had just found one too, never having seen one before, with zero information in the Gorham archives.

So here is another lily of the valley spoon:





~Cheryl

 

We are waiting for the Fabergé spoons to come out.

 

The photos are almost as good as the silver. I was going to comment on them and then I saw others had already. I will anyway, you could be a paid photographer for other online sellers or auction houses if you wanted to. They put mine to shame. How do you light them?


I’ve always been partial to the Whiting pattern in your first group photo. I got an example early into my silver buying foray. I had no idea there were so many variations on the theme. How comprehensive do you imagine your lily of the valley collection is percentage wise vs. total number of patterns/makers available?

The Wood & Hughes, Shepard, and Shiebler examples in your collection are some of the ones I like best.

 

Hah! That's unlikely - I have maybe half a dozen fairly common Russian spoons, genuine, but of no great value...

~Cheryl

 

Wow, thanks, but to my eye they're not bad but could be better, I do like to play with arrangement - lighting is just an overhead or a table lamp, sometimes I make a few adjustments when editing. I have a small light box, but haven't used it in ages.

Guessing the #3 Whiting in that group? It is a great pattern, popular in its day, still popular - and full-line, so there are a lot of different pieces.

Lily of the Valley patterns, or those with LotV elements were very common (and I also include other bell-shaped flowers), so my collection isn't anywhere near comprehensive, and because there are so many different designs to be found, it's fairly easy to find something I don't have - unless it's a very special piece, I'm pretty thrifty.

I used to have an uncommon pierced version of the Shiebler 'Flora', but didn't like it as much as the regular spoon, so I sold it for a nice profit.


~Cheryl


Very old pic of the Shiebler and its pierced variant:

 

I HAVE heard, that the SAMSUNG Galaxy phones actually do a better/clearer job of photographing than APPLE phones!!! Have on a few occasions borrowed DH's and do believe it!!!!

P.S...ANOTHER AWESOME collection of GORGEOUS silver from you!!! Thanks for showing it!!!!!!!!!!

 

Thanks, Aqui! I've no experience with Apple, but I'm on my third Samsung Galaxy (S6, S9, S20) and they've all taken excellent pics, and they're actually all still in operation, so I'm sold...

~Cheryl

 

Well they look pretty damn good to my eye considering you’re not lighting them in any intentional way. The nicely added text helps I suppose.

Yep third in from left. That’s great that they made a full service available in that pattern. I have to say the pierced Shiebler doesn’t do much for me either vs. the original. I’ll hope you run into some more unique, superb, and underpriced examples to add to the collection eventually.

 

OMG, spoontastic!
What a collection! They are like jewelry.
I want to stir tea with all of them. Or serve dessert ..or porridge.....

 

New addition to the collection - a sweet little heart form bon-bon spoon, marked only 'STERLING', 4-5/8" long, bowl 1/5/8" wide:









~Cheryl

 

That is an amazing collection. I love the first ones, there's just something about carved/etched metal that's enchanting to me. Lily of the Valley is a lovely flower, although I might be biased as it's the flower of many members of my family

 

I think my favorites have to be the Joliet spoon and the Barstow spoon. I mean, who would bother? (LOL) The others are pretty, and the photographs are better than most auction catalogs, but those two are just plain weird.