Sterling? Old Beat Up Spoon

Just got this old spoon at a local auction. I had to reach deep and pay $12.50 for it. Was my money worth spent? Or do I have to fly to England and chuck this tired looking wreck into AF's shed?

 

Silver (not sterling) - not where I can check my meager references at the moment, but it's Norwegian, from Bergen, looks like 1799...

~Cheryl

 

The big clue to the age of the spoon is that the marks are what would then have been the back of the spoon, because the 18th C table was laid with the pieces what we'd now call 'face down'. You can more commonly see this in monogrammed spoons and forks in the way the handle curves at the end and the side that the monogram is on.

Curl 'forward', monogram on 'back' equals early, curl 'backwards', monogram on front equals 19th C, when for some unknown reason everyone started laying the table with the spoons and forks face up instead of face down.

 

As long as the subject is here... Monograms -- the 19th century and onward variety -- are to be read as if the knife, fork or spoon was standing on the business end facing the user. An initial is NOT "either and M or a W;" it is one or the other -- even if neither can actually be discerned through all the curlycues!