More for the melting pot!
One of the advantages of buying flatware with a long-lived pattern is that you can easily add matching pieces if you need to replace lost or damaged pieces or want to expand the set. That's a more likely explanation than guests pilfering pieces, I feel. There is indeed a gap in dating between the pieces, but maybe not quite as large as suggested.
Almost every reference source says that Towle “adopted” the script letter T enclosing a lion rampant trademark c.1890, but that isn’t what the trademark registration application says. Towle didn’t actually register the mark until 1905 and the application says that “first use in commerce” was
1883. That is, they were using the mark unregistered from that time, although not necessarily widely so. Anthony Francis Towle established the Towle Manufacturing Company in 1882 while still owning A.F. Towle & Son. The “tipped” pattern for your flatware was introduced in 1880 by A.F Towle & Son; then from 1882 onwards produced by the Towle Manufacturing Company with that trademark having an earliest date of 1883.
[Note that 'Towle' is mis-spelled as 'Toule' in the USPTO TESS database]
For the Hotchkiss & Schreuder spoon, as the source you found says, they were active between c.1850-1871 but
not under that name. The company was established as Norton, Seymour & Co. (1853 – 1857), then Bunnelle & Schreuder (1853 – 1857), but the Hotchkiss & Schreuder partnership wasn’t formed until
1857 and existed until 1871 when it became A.B. Schreuder with Andrew Schreuder in business alone. Also, the two marks illustrated in your source have different date periods. The mark with the initials in circles with the ampersand in a diamond lozenge was in use between 1857-1864 but may have overlapped with the plain initials mark that succeeded it.
Note that American flatware stamped “STERLING” almost never predates the Civil War and is most usually post-1868, when America began embracing the Sterling standard rather than producing flatware in coin silver.
The additional ”O.G. Carter” stamp on the small spoon is for Otis G. Carter, a watchmaker and retail jeweller operating in Norwalk, Ohio between 1831-1854; Chicago, Illinois between 1854-1860; then again in Norwalk between 1860-1901.
