Any info or ideas welcome.. what kind of metal is it?

[DownEast_Detecting]

These finds are from one of the old foundation sites on my property. It’s the same site I found this locket at http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/w...p-dating-find-dug-my-new-site-last-night.html

So I found this spoon head and then this tiny peace of metal close by.

At first i thought the little piece might be the very end of the spoon handle. But I don’t think they are even the same metal.
Little piece had a white type of corrosion on it. I cleaned one side of it off. White patina is typically what? Tin/zinc? Obviously identifying the little piece is going to be hard/impossible. So more info on the spoon head is what I’m really hoping for. Like what kind of metal is it made from? Obviously if there are any marks on it, it’s on the piece I don’t have. But if the spoon was made of iron it would be rusted to almost nothing.

When I dug up this spoon at different house site. With all the pitting and rust on it. I assumed it was plated silver and not solid from the way it looked.


So if my spoon head isn’t silver, silver plated or iron. What is it? How old? Can anyone help with dating or suggestions for metal type. Thanks all.

 

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[villagenut]

could be pewter....

 

[Red-Coat]

I don’t know what the spoon fragments are made from. It could be pewter or any number of other possibilities but from the 1820s onwards, European manufacturers achieved their goal of finding an alloy containing no silver, but which had a close visual similarity to it. Prior to that they used an imported material from the Far East known as “paktong”, with German imitations of it appearing from about 1720.

In 1823 there was a German competition to perfect the process, resulting in the Henniger brothers of Berlin and Ernst August Geitner in Schneeberg independently achieving the goal. Others then produced their own variations, initially in Europe, but they were all alloys of copper and nickel with or without zinc. A typical formula was 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc and these kinds of alloys became generically known as “German Silver”. The German company Berndorf trademarked their variation as “Alpacca” and it was known in other places as Maillechort, Argentan, nickel brass, albata and various other names. It could be used plated or unplated, and even unplated it retained its brightness during normal use (in some cases better so than silver itself). After the innovation of the EPNS process patented by the Elkington Brothers in England in 1840 it saw extensive use as the base metal for the electroplating.

The intact spoon from the Victor Silver Company is by a division of the Derby Silver Company of Connecticut. For sure it will be silver plate on nickel silver. The Victor branding was what they used for their budget ranges. The spoon patten is “Randolph”, introduced in 1905. Derby Silver became part of the International Silver Company (ISC) in 1898 but continued to produce items with its own brandings under the ISC umbrella until 1933 when it folded as a victim of the Depression.

 

[invent4hir]

DownEast, does the tiny piece of metal feel heavy for its size? Could be lead, which had many uses and is commonly found around old homes. The spoon head could be of the fiddleback design - see attachment (second spoon from right).

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

I don't think your find is the "very end of the spoon handle", the dimensions don't look right to me.
I agree with villagenut, it looks like pewter.

It may have come from a mid-19thc pewter teapot, tankard or other household item.
Dave