Steve's History of Things 9 - Souvenir Spoons
The American Collection Souvenir Spoons began in America in 1889 with Galt & Bros. issue of the 100 th anniversary of George Washington's inauguration, spoon. It built on the trend of wealthy American travellers collecting decorative silver spoons from Europe in the 1800s. Within two years every town, fair, and event seemed to be producing their own commemorative spoons. They were small, inexpensive items and people soon started to make collections. I bought one such collection at auction last week, on a bit of a whim really, just to see what it was all about, and spent an amusing hour or three going through them all. Firstly, there was this fine little set of North American spoons ranging, geographically, from Canada to Hawaii. The British Collection Then we Brits took up the theme in a big way.This is a lovely British collection, predominantly from Scotland and north west England (presumably the original collector was from this part of the world on the England/Scotland ...