Markings on spoon

@DragonflyWink

 

Thank you very much for all your help. We really appreciate it.

 

The member I've tagged is a spoon specialist.

 

Thank you.

 

Eh, can't tell you too much - if you are referring to Wiliam Bradford who came here on the Mayflower, the family history is wrong (which is not uncommon) - by form, the spoon wouldn't date any earlier than around the mid 18th century, I'd suspect into the 19th. Looks to me like brass, and I'd guess most likely Spanish because of the 'Tagle' name and the style of that mark, the initial centered over the surname is very typical of Spanish silver maker's marks of the era - the other mark is odd, but can't shake the feeling I've seen something similar, the large letter does appear to be Cyrillic (wouldn't necessarily be Russian, but also not something I'd associate with Spain), but the 'N' looks like a Latin/Roman letter. Took a very quick look through some general spoon references, closest I found was in Belden & Snodin's 'Spoons' (1978), a large piece ( 14.2 inches), described as 'brass, French, late 18th or early 19th century, unmarked'.



~Cheryl

 

https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/a-william-and-mary-latten-trefid-spoon-5169164-details.aspx



'...and a pair of Georgian latten spoons' That would be the 2 on the right. Some similarity? Wondering if the mark that looks vaguely Cyrillic indicates metal content.

 

Not seeing a Cyrillic looking mark - which one? The fiddle spoons would be George III or IV, and if the color is true, they likely are latten, it's usually a bit paler than brass - should keep in mind that 'latten' was/is often used as a synonym for brass. There can be wide variance in the tones of the copper based alloys, but on my monitor, it looks like brass - if curious, could have it tested with a XRF spectrometer to see if it has more than trace lead content...

~Cheryl

 

The mark on OP's spoon that doesn't look like what you would expect for maker or owner.



It came into my head that Pb is the abbreviation for the Latin word for lead. But this bN is not at all like the Latin for brass. So then wondered if there was some kind of mark to indicate brass/latten that had a particular metal content, not necessarily based on Latin. It's quite conspicuous. Metal content was the only idea I had for significance.

 

I love Antiquers, this discussion is fascinating!!!!!

 

Thank you all for your insights. You are the experts and a wealth of information. My gramma is soo pleased. She wanted me to add that the spoon is 7 inches long if that matters.

 

Thought we had done all we could here. Wanted to check out one more thing & found this. It's brief, with lots of pix:

https://www.nederlandsetinvereniging.nl/userfiles/File/6400/6479_ERK.pdf

https://pilgrimjohnhowlandsociety.org/articles.php?id=10

If you've skimmed the other pdf, you will have seen that earlier spoon bowls were more rounded & 'fig shaped'. Suspect William Bradford got into the story because the bowl shape with the pointy tip, which came later, is known as a Puritan bowl or Puritan spoon.

Best regards to Gramma.

 

For good measure, fairly short article starting page 6:

https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcont...e.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1039&context=bmas

 

I'm glad your Gramma is happy to know more, even if not really identified - at 7", it would be a table spoon, though now sometimes called a serving spoon, it would have originally been used for eating...

Bronwen, I'm a bit confused - do you believe the OP's spoon resembles a Puritan spoon? If so, believe you might be misinterpreting something - a Puritan spoon would have a slender straight-sided flat handle, with a wide oval bowl, quite rotund, as shown in your first link. This page shows some silver Puritan spoons: https://www.antiquesilverspoons.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=puritan

~Cheryl

 

Sorry. No. From the bit of speed reading on the topic I have done for this thread, got the idea that Gramma's spoon has a bowl of the shape that is referred to as Puritan & was speculating that if anyone along the line was told it was a Puritan spoon, that might have been the origin of the notion spoon once belonged to William Bradford. And then found the other articles that show spoons actually from Plymouth & that time period, which sort of take the wind out of the Bradford sail.

 

Hello mopabrian,
The spoon is not Russian for sure. The Russian alphabet never had letters G or L.