El Unico Orange Knife

This advertisement from The Century magazine from 1894 shows another Victorian way of dealing with the orange.  The knife is steel and is silver plated. The handle is sold in ivory, pearl, celluloid, sterling and silverplate. It "has a fine saw edge" and can "cut orange and grapefruit smoothly without releasing any bitter oils from the skin".

Other than this advertisement I have never heard of El Unico of St. Augustine Florida. Rainwater nor any other of my references mention this maker. It is possible that they are a reseller. However, te blade is stamped with their mark. To be honest again if someone brought me this knife I would probably confuse it with a cheese knife which it closely resembles. 

Holmes & Edwards Silver Company Advertisement for the Waldorf Pattern

This is a advertisement for the Holmes & Edwards Silver Co. Waldorf pattern. It appears in The Century in 1894. It is an Easter advertisement urging surprise on the morning of  or surprising that "particular friend".  One of course wonders what that is a euphemism for. 

J.H. Johnston & Co. Advertisement 1894

This is an advertisement for the J.H. Johnston & Company for a variety of silver novelties.  They have their offices in Union Square New York and show a wide variety of silver goods. This advertisement appears in The Century magazine in 1894.  My favourite piece here is the "Cleopatra" pen rest in the shape of a snake and I am guessing an asp. The advertisement also features an ink eraser.

Spaulding & Company Sterling Silverware Advertisement

This is an advertisement in The Century magazine from 1894 from Spaulding & Company Inc. for their sterling flatware. They claim addresses in Paris and Chicago.

Simpson, Hall, Miller & Company Almond Bowl 1894

This is an advertisement for an almond bowl from Simpson, Hall, Miller & Co. This advertisement appears in The Century magazine in 1894. What is interesting here besides this unusual Victorian piece of silverplate is the advertisement mentions the unnecessary nature of luxury goods.

It claims that fine china and silver make life better by their aesthetic qualities "Life Brightening". It also instructs the reader in the use of the almond bowl where the almonds are placed in the middle nut bowl and then distributed into the cups on the edge for the individual. To be honest, if I came across this piece for sale I would have had no idea what it was originally used for.

Orange Holder Advertisement from Pairpoint Manufacturing Co. 1894

This is an advertisement for a rather rare piece of silver the orange holder. This advertisement appears in Munsey's Magazine in 1894 and was bought by the Pairpoint Manufacturing Corporation. These pieces would later be called orange bowls. They sought to help the stodgy Victorians figure out the "proper" way to eat the newly widely available oranges.

From This Saturday in Shawnee Oklahoma Pairpoint Mfg. Co. Spooner

 

This little beauty was also found in Shawnee. Once again on a back shelf hidden from view. The owner of the shop Jackie, was a little upset because he had meant to purchase this piece but had forgotten about it. He collects Art Nouveau silver and been at the auction where this was originally sold. He had gotten distracted at the auction and missed the piece and then had forgotten about it in his own shop. 

To his credit he had just opened his shop three months ago and had been particularly busy getting it up and running. We talked a bit about the trade and I picked his brain for advise about running an antique shop. His shop was on the higher end of the scale. He kept referring to it as a gallery, rather than a shop.  In fact I thought to suggest better signage because we almost did not go in because we were unsure what it was. 

Still it was quite pleasant. Much better than the antique shop that has two things from the fifties and a bunch of feathered pens and crap from Two's company. These shops are the worst. They are like some sort of sick Hallmark store and because I go to a lot of shops in rural areas, they have a very strange idea about marketing to middle class white women. I mean these are hard to describe, it is as if the decorator section of Hobby Lobby has vomited into a small town. 

But I digress. The shop owner Jackie pointed out to me that this was a spooner and I agree.  Had he known that I was a writer for the leading silver blog I am sure he would have asked me what I thought but we can't be famous everywhere. In honesty this piece has spent some time as a "penner". When I gave it its inital wash, a good step before polishing, the water from the inside ran out blue. Seems there was a whole splotch of dried ink on the bottom of the inside. When I first checked it I knew there was some muck in there but did not realize what it was. So it spent last night filled with water on the counter soaking. 

The piece itself is in good condition. It was made by Pairpoint Manufacturing Company of New Bedford Massachusetts.  This company was founded in 1880 as the Pairpoint Mfg. Co. and named after Thomas J. Pairpoint a founder that left the Meriden Britannia Company. Mr. Pairpoint is noted for his ideas about silver as a form of art and for the introduction of intricate design into the manufacturing process. I think if we compare Victorian silver with earlier pieces we can see some of his influence. Renaissance silver is very figural and decorative. Colonial silver is very plain. Victorian silver begins by copying the intricacies of the Renaissance. Thomas Pairpoint was partially responsible for this. 

The Pairpoint Mfg. Co. became the Pairpoint Corporation in 1900 due to financial difficulties. Prior to this Pairpoint had acquired the Mt. Washington Glass Corporation in 1894. they continued as a dual company making glass and silver until the depression on 1929 forced them to shut down silver production. The Niagara Silver Co.  purchased the flatware lines in 1900. Some patterns for holloware were purchased by the Rockford Silver Plate Co.

I really like everything I have see from Pairpoint. While quite a few of my colleges feel that Meriden Britannia Co. is one of the top corporations for silver plate, and I agree that they created work, I think Pairpoint often exceeds them in terms of design. Now I am known in the industry for liking smaller makers and smaller pieces, but I think there are a number of collectors that would agree with me on this point. Pairpoint on the whole had beautiful designs. I would have to say that they are in my top five manufacturers.

The Yale Banner 1894 - Wilcocx Silver Plate Co.

Advertisement for Wilcox Silver Plate Co. in the Yale Banner 1894.

McClure's Magazine, premiums and free silver

"Premiums Given for Trade-Marks to Attract New Customers"

Advertisement is a great example of the sort of thing that companies used to do with silver. There is a lot of premium given silver out in the world, waiting to be discovered. I have a giant box of Queen Bess pattern flatware that was a premium for Betty Crocker.

The 1910 pattern Sunkist by Wm Rogers and Son is another example. It was given away by the Sunkist citrus growers as a premium. Another 1910 pattern by the same maker, Orange Blossom was given away by the California Fruit Growers Exchange. The Rose pattern by the same company was offered as a premium in 1910 by the Liebig Company for their fine product Extract of Beef. To be clear I have no Idea what Extract of Beef is, but I imagine it is something like bullion.

Dunham's Cocanut was a St. Louis company but I do not know much more about them then that. A quick search on Google mainly turned up materials they have left behind as premiums, like dollhouses and recipe books. Still, it is interesting to see the variety of material that was available. The advertisement below is from McClure's MagazineVolume 8 1896. 









Some of the other advertisements are wonderful and you should sort through them. There is one for a meat chopper that claims it can handle anything from "codfish to coconuts" with accompanying pictures. On page 51 there is an advertisement for the Colombia pattern orange spoon made by 1847 Rogers Bros. and the Meriden Britannia Company.



Page 5o has an advertisement for R. Wallace & Sons Mfg. Co. Sterling. The top of the same page has a sterling silver nail polisher made by the Daniel Low & Co. silversmiths from Salem Massachusetts.




Sometimes a company included their stamp on a piece. The Banner Buggy Company of St. Louis (St. Louis again? perhaps a city that likes free stuff) offered flatware pieces made by Wm Rogers Mfg. Co.. One such pattern was Artubus from 1908. These were given out as advertising souvenirs. In 1894 the Banner Buggy Company gave out pieces of the pattern named Florida.  The 1901 pattern Oxford (Wm rogers Mfg. Co. ) was also used by the Banner Buggy Company and Peterson and Company of Chicago. Peterson and Company a flavouring and extract company.

In 1913 the Wm Rogers pattern Argyle (also stamped Anchor Rogers) appears to be the last of the Banner Buggy Premiums.

Many other patterns were adopted as premiums, like Queen Bess mentioned before.

One of my favourite patterns is Friendship from 1932.  friendship was made by Wm Rogers Mfg. Co. as well as Oneida Community Tudor Plate. This pattern had its own naming contest, (the winner of the $ 7,000 prize proposed the name Medality)

Not really surprising considering the contest was for Gold Medal Flour.   I once picked up six dessert forks in this pattern at an estate sale, where the advertisement and "point saving" card were wrapped around the silverware. Someone had carefully saved packaging and was in the process of acquiring more forks.  Something had stopped the process and the whole business had been undisturbed until I picked it up and sorted through it.

I know premiums continued for a while, my own mother has mentioned saving coupons when she was younger for silver. I think this may bear investigation.