Spoon

OFFERED at Edinburgh’s Royal College of Surgeons, a 169-lot section of Scottish provincial silver provided many of the highlights at Thomson Roddick & Medcalf’s (15% buyer's premium) March 29 sale.

WOOLLEY & Wallis sold the first tranche of the caddy spoon collection assembled over the past half century by John Norie on April 20.

Historians have spent many enjoyable hours attempting to decipher the symbolism of pictures on the back of Georgian teaspoons such as those illustrated right. Like the club tie or the secret society handshake, the picture back teaspoon was an English gentleman’s discreet method of signalling loyalties to potential sympathisers when serving afternoon tea.

The Caddy Spoon in the 20th Century, published by the Society of Caddy Spoon Collectors, Upper Nordens Clinic, Royal Oak Lane, High Hurstwood, Uckfield, East Sussex TN22 4AN, price £12.60 including p&p.

THE best seller at Tennants’ sale on November 22-23 in the Yorkshire Dales was consigned by a Yorkshire family with connections to the famous silversmith who made it.

Owners of silver spoons are generally believed to have a head start in life, and the continuing bouyancy of this market might keep a few heads above water in the coming months.

Sometimes the most famous names can be found in the unlikeliest places. Biddle & Webb auctioneer Nicholas Davies had been called out to view a Georgian drop leaf table in a local property but noticed this early trefid spoon, pictured, in a small box of cutlery.

UK: The most comprehensive and perhaps the finest collection of early silver spoons to appear on the market since the 1960s went under the hammer at Woolley and Wallis in Salisbury last Wednesday (October 25).