Joseph Rodgers & Sons | Fan-Handle Preserve Spoons | Sterling Silver | Pair | Sheffield 1903

A pair of preserve spoons made in Sheffield in 1903 — the same city, the same year, that Frederick Wentworth-Shields was busy electrifying the tram network. The spoons will outlast the trams.

Joseph Rodgers & Sons of Sheffield was one of the most celebrated cutlery manufacturers in England, holding a Royal Warrant from the mid-nineteenth century and operating from the famous address at 6 Norfolk Street. The firm exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and maintained a reputation for fine silversmithing alongside its cutlery trade well into the twentieth century. These preserve spoons were produced at the height of the Edwardian period, when the formal table still demanded a dedicated implement for every condiment, and when Sheffield's silver trade was producing work of considerable quality for both the domestic and export markets. The spoon form here is the shovel or trowel bowl — a flat, pointed, shield-shaped bowl suited to lifting preserves, jams or soft conserves from a pot — combined with a fan or spray handle, a distinctly late-Victorian and Edwardian form in which the handle splays into a series of parallel ribs that fan out to a shaped terminal.

Each spoon has a trowel-shaped bowl with a fine beaded border running around its perimeter. The bowl face is engraved with a symmetrical acanthus and foliate spray centred on the bowl, with small punched bead detailing above the engraving. The engraving is crisp and confident, consistent with hand-worked decoration of the period rather than a mechanical press. The stems are plain and flat, widening at a junction point before splaying into the fan terminal, which comprises five parallel raised ribs converging at a pointed finial with small side spurs. The reverse of each bowl is plain and polished. The hallmarks are struck in a neat sequence on the upper face of the handle near the terminal and are clearly legible.

Both spoons are in excellent condition. The bowls retain their original polish with light surface scratching to the bowl face of one spoon, consistent with careful use. The engraving is fully intact on both pieces with no loss of definition. The hallmarks are crisp and undamaged. There is no bending, splitting or repair to either spoon.

• Maker: Joseph Rodgers & Sons, Sheffield
• Material: Sterling silver (92.5% — lion passant confirmed)
• Period: Edwardian, 1903
• Decoration: Hand-engraved acanthus and foliate spray with beaded bowl border; fan-form ribbed handle
• Dimensions: Length 11.9cm, width 2.8cm, height 1cm
• Weight: 26g combined (13g each)
• Hallmarks: Joseph Rodgers & Sons maker's mark | Sheffield assay office (crown) | lion passant | date letter l (1903)
• Condition: Excellent
• Buyer profile: Collector of Edwardian sterling silver; buyer seeking a matched pair of antique preserve spoons for use or display; silver flatware collector

Silver made to serve at table has a different quality of survival to silver made for display — it has been trusted, which is its own kind of honour.