Evangeline Shattuck was my great-grandfather’s second wife, not a direct relative of mine. But she was the only great-grandmother I remember. This was her serving spoon and I treasure it.
I have neglected this blog and now realize how much I’ve missed it! I have a backlog of photos, so here’s to a new beginning.
Always Backroads 
What a lovely treasure from the past.
Thanks. I do love it.
Nice to see your blog again.
Thanks. I don’t know how I let it go so long. I do enjoy posting photos.
I totally get that but Instagram and FB are filling that need for me right now.
I have been on IG and FB more as well. But they seem more ephemeral. I frequently get comments on very old blog posts.
I was going to look in my book on silver-plate patterns to see if I could ID the pattern, but now I can’t find the book! Do you know what pattern it is? It looks old. I love the cut-work on the bowl of the spoon.
Thanks. I’ll send you some photos. I’m guessing late 1800s to maybe 1920 for its age.
My book wouldn’t have done any good…it’s only for silver plate. You have sterling silver. Big difference. I love silver, both plate and sterling. I got lucky and got a bunch of sterling spoons from my mother-in-law and had no idea what I had. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Pure silver is too soft to be much good for anything, so it has to be mixed with another metal to make it harder. Sterling silver is as close to pure silver as you can get for flatware or teapots or whatever. It is now fixed at 92.5% silver, although those percentages varied for a long time.
Sterling is generally fairly expensive so in the late 1800s, a process was developed to make flatware and holloware (pitchers, vases, etc) out of much cheaper, harder metals and then electrically plate a thin layer of silver onto the base metal. This allowed newly affluent working folks a chance to buy “silverware” at a much lower price. Silver plate, if used a lot, can lose some of the silver, especially on the backs of spoons. It isn’t usually worth it to have it replated.
Silver, of either type, was popular for many years…a sign that you had “arrived” and were a housekeeper of good taste. Since the 60s, it has dropped substantially in popularity, mostly because silver tarnishes if not used regularly and nobody wants to take the time or even knows how to care for it any more.
Tarnish is not the same as “patina” and polishing the tarnish off does not diminish the value of the silver. But don’t EVER use anything abrasive on silver. Use only silver polish and a soft cloth or the soft sponge that sometimes comes with the silver polish or silver cream. Don’t be tempted to use the “dip it and done” stuff. Polishing horribly tarnished silver may take some elbow grease but otherwise polishing silver is not a difficult task. And the beautiful, gleaming silver is a great reward for your effort!
Donna, I would spend a few minutes polishing that spoon and then enjoy its beauty.
Thanks for all the info! I use my grandmother’s sterling for my everyday use. And think of her often.
Oh…one other thing I learned. It looks like the initials on the spoon were not hers. There used to be a tradition, in the late 1800s, maybe into the early 1900s, of giving away a woman’s spoons to her friends after her death. My M-I-L had many spoons that she got from her mother, many with different initials on them.
If silver is engraved with a woman’s initials, then it was usually given as a gift after her marriage. If the silver was a gift before her marriage, then usually only her first name was engraved, assuming that when she married her last initial would change.
I have a large serving spoon with most of the silver worn off the back from constant use. It is engraved with my M-I-L’s first name and the patent date on the back is of the same year she was born, 1905. I’m assuming it was given to her mother in honor of Rosa’s birth.
Fascinating general history to go along with one piece of silver!
Thanks, Donna. I was afraid maybe I was spouting off too much but I remember how fascinated I was when I finally learned more about silver and recognized what I had inherited from Rose.
The spoon is a work of art. And so it the your picture of it with its beautiful shadow.
Thank you.