Just doing a bit of tidying up on some older threads, mainly for the benefit of anyone searching the site for information.
Nice spoons.
George Sharp was active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, working for Bailey & Co. (not to be confused the jeweller George Sharp active in Atlanta, Georgia around the same time). By the late 1860’s he left Bailey & Co. to establish his own company, which went out of business in 1874.
He held a number of flatware design patents, but none for 1863. There is however one for 5th January
1864 titled “Ornamental design for the ends of handles of spoons &c” which reads: "The nature of my invention or production consists in finishing the extreme outer ends of the shank handles of ladles […] in the ornamental globular forms".
The US Patent Bulletin is traditionally published every Tuesday but in December 1863 it was published only on 1st, 8th,15th and 22nd but not on the 29th December. The next publication was on January 5th 1864. I suspect that he was notified at the end of December 1863 that his patent had been granted but it missed publication that year because of the Christmas holiday period, as sometimes happened.
His flatware sometimes has only his “G.S.” mark (his initials, not for “German Silver”) and sometimes also his name in full together with his initials. Some of his work is also marked “Sterling” as below, and some not. I suspect that the items not marked as sterling are earlier pieces and also silver rather than plate, but probably coin silver to a nominal .900 fineness.
