Silverware Edna Carlson Iowa State College
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Volume 4 Article 10 Number 7 The Iowa Homemaker vol.4, no.7 1924 Silverware Edna Carlson Iowa State College Follow this and additional works at: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/homemaker Part of the Home Economics Commons Recommended Citation Carlson, Edna (1924) "Silverware," The Iowa Homemaker: Vol. 4 : No. 7 , Article 10. Available at: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/homemaker/vol4/iss7/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Publications at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in The oI wa Homemaker by an authorized editor of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE IO W A H 0 lJl E M A J( E R , 9 Silverware By EDNA CARLSON King John of England in 1216 A. D. silversmith, who in the year 1742 evolved called into court the Easterlings, who Marks from some Old the idea of combining copper with sil· were traders of the Hanseatic cities of ver in layers ready for manufacture in Flanders and the Lowlands, bec-ause of Sheffield Plate any desirable form. Sheffield plate, the reputation that had been earned by as it was known, had silver on one side their silver tokens of exchange,-assign of the copper only,-but later the under ed to them the task of reforming the side was covered with tin. This plate English coinage. Thus the name "ster being such a close imitation of solid sil ling" remains a lasting tribute to the John Honcock & Co. Candlestick 1760 ver, was not permitted by laws of Eng commercial integrity of the Easterlings. land to bear any stamp whatever prior to 1773 when the town of Sheffield was Today the term sterling means .925 permitted to put the mark of the makers pure siiver, while s.Uver plate consists Tbomos Law Candlestick 1760 on the products. Sometimes this old of a base metal coated or plated with plate also bore the name of the Lord or silver .999 fine. Thus it will be seen [B&f)<® Earl for whom it was made and today that the actual silver in a silver plated Boulton & Fothergill, Tea Caddy 1760 these old pieces .are more highly valued article is even purer than Sterling sil by their owners than silver which is in ver. The reason is obvious as the .075 trinsically more varuable. The best alloy in sterling is necessary in order to ITH0 5 IAW&c<?:ll plated ware today bas for its base metr•.1 give the pure silver a certain degree of Thomas Law & Co., Mustard Pot 1780 nickel silver, which is practically inde stifiness and durability and make it pos structable and is composed of nickel, cop sible for the silversmiths to work the DAN~ HOLY --.JlJ\ peT and zinc, and is itseH capable of metal, whereas in plated ware the base I WILKINS 0,.. &CQ taking a: high polish and when so finished metal supplies all the durability neces Daaiel Holly, Salver 1790 might easily be mistaken for silver. sary, and makes possible the use of pure silver in the plating. The charm of old Sheffield plate was in its beautiful Corm and design, for The durability of plated silver may be the best English artisans did the work. indicated by the number of penny In Pepy's "Dairy" he refers to a present weights of silver used to coat a dozen Early Early 1825 1800 1500 made him of a pair of flagons which pieces. Dwt. meaning pennyweight cost 100 pounds. "They are sain to be or .single, double, or triple plate is stamp· worth 5 shillings, some say 10 shillings, ed on the silverware. Twelve dwt. is an ounce for the fashion." So it would f1quivalent to triple plate in knives and appear that the workmen were well forks but in teaspoons ten dwt. and in 1800 Tea J'ot paid. table spoons twenty dwt. indicates trip~ e Wine Cooler and Wine Slide Candlestick plate. Triple plated ware lasts a life The first improvement over the Shef time when well cared for. fi eld work came during the middle of the The beginnings of the silversmith's were only two forks found in over a J 9th Century, when electro-silver plating art are lost in the mists of early c-en thousand pieces. was first practic-ed and commercially per turies. Primitive men of the Stone Age Altho great skill was devloped by the fected in 18-17. Electricity was brought to used an implement that might be call early silversmiths it is erroneous to (.up bear on the making of silver plated kniv ed a spoon. From then on down thru pose that all of the Qrnamentation was es, forks and spoons, as wei! as hollow the Egyptian, Greek and Roman civiliza done by hand . Ornaments on the back ware articles such as teapots, sugar tions it can be clearly traced in varying of spoon bowls and handles,were impress- bowls. Instead of these articles being forms and s'ubstances-wood, shell, flint, ed by dies forced togetheT by drop made of sheets of rolled copper and sil bone, ivory, bronze and the precious me presses or under screw pressure. ver, a silver plate of any desired thick tals. gold and silver. A Frenchman once The combining of two separate metals ness is applied to the base m etal by elec said that spoons, if not as old as the -that is, the plating of a base metal tricity. world, were certainly as old as soup. with a finer one-was, until the 18th century, a lost art of the ancients. The The making of a piece of high grade In the Bible, we have reference to the appliaction of one metal upon another f,ilver plate involves many operations. use of spoons made of percious metal. was practiced by the Assyrians, who A teaspoon for instance, must go thru In the 25th Chapter of the Book of Exo overlapped iron with bronze; copper im more than thirty distinct stages. In dus the Lord rommanded Moses to make plements and ornaments coated with sil brief, tbe article is first formed from a golden spoons for the Tabernacle. ver have been found at Herculaneum, special white metal into its permanent while ancient specimens of Roman har shape and design. It is then suspend Excavations in Egypt have brought to ness and armor are found ornamented ed on a frame in a silver solution ready light early examples of gold and silver with silver on copper. to receive the plating, which is deposited Rpoons and specimens in wood, ivory, by the action of electricity passing thru bronze, silver and gold and preserved The Aztecs of Mexico and th'e Inc-as the solution and thru the metal object in the Museums of Egypt and Europe. of Peru used the process of fixing two suspended therein. The silver thus de metals together by the action of heat be posited is absolutely pure-.999 fi:ae. During the Tudor and Stuart reigns, fore working the same into various arti a fashionable gift at Christenings was cles of utility and ornamentation. The This quick and less expensive method the apostle spoon-so called from the Celts also used this method. The rea of manufacture has rendered silver plate figure of an apostle decorating the han· son for this art being lost in Europe is available to all-and while the process die. Sometimes a thirteenth spoon was probably due to the fact that up to the has cheapened-the art standards of the added-the "Master" spoon, so called be· 13th Century the ch1,1rch had control o: old masters have been wisely followed. ~ause it bore the figure of Christ. At t·he arts and crafts in England and the this peTiod the stems were hexagonal finer metal work was used for church while the bowls were fig shape. Later. vessels, household .utensils being made Many of the old family pieces of She-· the stems became baJ'uster shape and of wood and cheap metal. fi eld have gone to the melting pot in e:-. then at the time of the Common change for the modern electric plate"" Horace Walpole, writing in 1760, sta ware, which goes to prove its worth. And wc"tlth, the Rpoon became perfectly plain tes: "I pass-ed thru Sheffield, a business and was called the "Puritan" spoon. tho the silver of our forbearers is beau town in a· c-harming situation, with 22.- tiful, and valuable, from a historic stand So few silver forks have been found 000 inhabitants, and they remit 11,000 point, the silversmith of the 20th Cen in collections of old silver that it is be pounds a week to London. One man tury bringr. to his creations all the good lieved that they were generally made there has discovered the art of plating copper with silver." of the old masters and ha·s the facilities of steel with bone handles. In the great for turning out work more perfect ~ line, silver exhibition, recently held in the The inventor to whom the quotation detail and uniformity than was ever Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, there refers was Thomas Bolsover, a skilled dreamed of by the silver worker of old. .