Silver flatware

Here are a couple pieces I need some help with.

The aesthetic period knife is about 8" long and silverplate. It is marked Reed and Barton with a number 3. Seems a bit big and too pointed for a butter knife. Any other use? Pattern name?

What is the skewer thing and any idea of maker? The first mark is an elongated walking lion. The second mark looks like a fancy R but may actually be a bird with head at upper left and tail at lower right. Marked both sterling and 925.

 

Brad, what in the world are ***we*** doing up at this early hour!!! Wellll, it's an hour early for me than for you. Anywho, the Reed & Barton knife is a fish knife
http://search.replacements.com/search/?query=Reed+&+Barton+fish+knife

and the other is a 1 tine butter pick.
http://search.replacements.com/search/?query=1+tine+butter+pick

I'm still working on the maker of the beaded pick and the R & B pattern.

--- Susan

 

The first one looks like some kind of pickle handler, the second possibly a combined cake knife and server. Or possibly a whipped cream spreader, somehow I see it as a device for piling calories on calories.

I have my doubts about the 'fish knife' attribution, the handle of a fish knife is usually fatter and the blade less broad.

 

The "lion R 925" looks like the mark of Roden Bros., Ltd. of Toronto. Their mark pictured in the following link is reversed, but still looks like the same lion and "R." 3rd down on the right:
http://www.925-1000.com/americansilver_R3.html

The beaded Roden pattern may be the following titled ROF12 on replacements:
https://www.replacements.com/webquote/ROFROF12.htm

--- Susan

 

I am by nature a night owl when I am getting some work done, well engaged, or having some fun. Tonight only fits in to one of those categories. Will be off to bed very soon.

Appreciate the quick response. Never would have figured a butter pick. I was thinking along the same lines as af.

 

Might be Roden Bros but the mark looks different besides the reversal of order. The lion on my piece is solid rather than outlined and less cartoon-like if that makes sense. The R, while similar, is not the same. Sorry my pic is not better. This was the best of about 15 attempts and taken through a magnifying glass.

 

The Reed & Barton pattern is "Unique: Reed & Barton, 1880, Pat #11780, Wm. Beattie design." The 2nd set of pics up from the bottom or the 10th set of pics down from the top.
https://queenofsienna.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/some-19th-century-flatware-patterns/

On replacements.com. That knife may be a master butter knife? Look at the one pictured on replacements:
http://www.replacements.com/webquote/RDSUNI.htm

--- Susan



"Unique" butter knife per replacements (For educational purposes only):

 

Brad, look at the Roden silver marks on the following page. The 2nd one is in the same order as yours and the lion isn't so "cartoon-like"
http://www.silvercollection.it/CANADASILVERSMITHSR.html

--- Susan

 

Butter pick and master butter knife - and, yes, I suppose it is calorie on calorie. Pass the muffins, please.

 

The Reed & Barton knife is plated, not sterling, Brad. The 3 is a plating indicator.

 

I have almost no silver or silverplate, but I do by chance have a number of pieces of flatware in the "Unique" pattern by Reed & Barton. Yes, it is plated, not sterling. Bought a few teaspoons about 4 years ago and laboriously looked through Replacements until I figured out what pattern it is -- then bought several more things. I've often seen that pattern listed as 1879 rather than 1880, but it probably doesn't matter. I have no authoritative sources to consult, anyway.

If you search eBay for Unique Reed Barton you will find more than one of these master butter knives for sale. I really like the pattern, and some of the pieces go for a little more than others.

 

Thanks all!

As indicated in my opening post, I do know that the knife is silverplate. I see a couple of these on ebay have the handle twisted to 90 degrees. What would be the reason/difference?

Susan,
The mark you showed for Roden in the second link is pretty much identical, including the R. I am now convinced that it is not a bird .... LOL! Seems to be a fair amount of variation in their mark. .

 

Aside from the Victorian penchant for ruffling fireplaces, antimacassering chairs, and generally embellishing the heck out of everything -- the only reason for the twist in the master butter knife is that it actually does sit more securely on the butter container, and takes up less space.

 

And, once one has sectioned off one's chunk of butter, the pointy tip of the knife is stabbed in it to convey the pat to one's butter plate (or at a formal dinner, the edge of one's dinner plate).

Apologies to Emily, Amy, and Elizabeth for the rather casual phraseology.

 

Sorry about missing the place where you said silverplate in the OP, Brad. Too early and not enough coffee - my only excuse.

 

Not enough coffee is an excuse for almost anything!

 

Especially at this time of the year when it's still very dark here.

 

I have noticed that the Unique pattern pieces each have a separate number on them. Brad mentioned the butter knife has the number 3. I was assuming these numbers are to identify them as part of a full set, and to give the individual numbers in the full set. Is that correct? If not, what are the numbers for? And do other sets have this, normally?

 

Baker covered it in her reply #10 "plating indicator."

 

Thanks, Susan.

Just to expand on what "plating indicator" meant - In the early days of electroplating in the US, some makers stamped flatware with a number that was supposed to represent the quantity of silver used in plating a large quantity of pieces of the same type - so many troy ounces or so many "dwt" (meaning "pennyweights") of silver per gross of teaspoons (for example.) Since pieces vary in size, different amounts of silver would be needed to achieve the same theoretical thickness of plating. This indicator eventually morphed into designations such as "double plate," "triple plate" etc. Since none of this was independently regulated, it was mostly marketing hype.