Coin silver spoon? And maybe plate

[NJ Marty]

I also posed this in the what is it forum to hopefully ID the F.C Raymond Boston spoon silversmith. The Raymond is very very thin. I hope some of these are the real deal as I always come up with silver plate when I dabble in areas im not familiar with. Got the spoons for 50 cents each after digging through a big box of spoons and forks at an estate sale. Im thinking the Reed & Barton might be plate. Any info is appreciated.

 

[buzzhead]

Most of your coin silver is going to be marked 900-800-750. The reed and Barton is plated. 12 signifies the amount of silver per set that was used to plate the items I think. I want to say I looked that up online somewhere. Foreign marks I'm unfamiliar with for the most part.

 

[dw171]

The only ones I knew of were Reed and Barton. They generally didn't make a lot of silver plated items, but they're out there. Best bet would be to acid test them, and make sure they are very bendable because sterling silverware bends easily. If you were wanting information on the creators, I can't help there.

 

[willis7]

I saw one that was for sure plated, anything that's marked E P is plated the ep stand for electroplated other marks are EPNS EPNC

 

[diggummup]

The B. Dexter marked "pure coin" is obviously coin silver. The Reed & Barton would be marked is sterling. The number 12 denotes the grade of silver plate, in this case it stands for "triple plate". The base metal being nickel. The J. Lyons is electro plated as mentioned. The F.C. Raymond may be coin silver as not all of it was marked. I haven't found much information online about him in regards to flatware or silver other than a couple pieces that have sold and were listed as coin silver. Like this one- Antique Coin Silver Ladle F.C.Raymond Boston

I did find an F.C. Raymond that was listed as a jeweler so that very well could have been him- "F. C. raymond, jeweler, lived at 3 Garden Court but business at 229 Washington" here- http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=villandra-low&id=I431

 

[jerseyben]

The Raymond spoon... Every single spoon I have ever seen made in that style has been coin silver. Not a single one has been marked with anything but the maker's name.

IMO, it should look, smell, feel, sound like "silver". You will just know.

 

[batcap]

Very thin is a good clue, my coin silver spoons are quite flimsy too. Also notice how the monogram is black with tarnish? A lot silverware is plated at the factory and monogrammed afterward, so a lack of tarnish in the grooves is a clue that it's plated. Vise versa doesn't hold up; it could have been monogrammed, then plated.

 

[Red-Coat]

Just doing a bit of tidying up on some older threads, mainly for the benefit of anyone searching the site for information.

The F.C. Raymond spoon will be coin silver and is from Freeman Collins Raymond (1801-1879), a silversmith, jeweller and watchmaker operating in Belfast, ME between 1834-1839 and Boston, MA between 1839-1879. With the additional ‘Boston; mark it will be from the latter period of operation.

J. Lyons & Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. They opened their first teashop in Piccadilly, London in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops on British high streets, with around 200 establshments at their peak and finally closing in 1981. They incorporated as a Limited Company in 1922 when they also formed an export division to service the company's overseas operations during its rapid business expansion following the First World War. That spoon is Gorham-marked electroplate and I would guess the ‘EX’ might be for ‘export’. Gorham did have an operation in Britain (but small), and Lyons did operate in America (but as J. Lyons & Co Inc. not J. Lyons & Co. Ltd). The American company was formed in 1950 in New York, but I suspect the spoon was made for the British company and has found it’s way across the pond. The other possibility is from Canada, where they operated as J. Lyons & Co (Canada) Ltd from Cadby Hall, Toronto.

The Reed & Barton spoon is their 1869 ‘Brilliant’ pattern, which was only made in silverplate.