Steve's History of Things 9 - Souvenir Spoons

 

The American Collection

Souvenir Spoons began in America in 1889 with Galt & Bros. issue of the 100th 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 border). But there was also one from the extreme south: the Isle of Wight (which, from here, is virtually going abroad!). As there were 23 of them in total, they got the largest display rack, a rather beautiful, ornately carved affair.

The Royal Collection


There was one rather grand, glass fronted display case, and this I reserved for the small, but very select, Royal Collection. Queen Elizabeth's silver and platinum jubilee spoons, Charles and Diana with the newly born Prince William and so forth.

The World Collection


The 15 spoons from the rest of the world, ranging from Holland to Hong Kong, I mounted on the second shield display rack.

The Oddbods Collection 

And the remaining oddities I'm giving away free with the remaining display rack, which I'm just selling at the going rate, which seems to be £15.


Coin collectors are numismatists, stamp collectors are philatelists, and spoon collectors are... spoon collectors. Apparently there isn't a high falutin' name for them.


Happy collecting


Steve




Steve's History in association with Steve's Vintage Collectables

 


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Previous posts in Steve's History of Things

1 Introduction

2 Five Good Reasons to Buy EPNS

3 Fieldings Musical Tankards

4 Jasperware

5 Blood Pressure Monitors

6 Chodov Porcelain

7 The Pottery Detective

8 Royal Memorabilia



Location: Cockermouth CA13, UK

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