Featured Horn spoon?

Hi, everybody:

I have this horn spoon, approximately 7-7/8" long, that I presume is Scottish in origin. As you'll see in the attached photos, it has a metal (silver?) shield on the handle with an engraved monogram, and a metal end piece that is hand-engraved on three of the four sides. The remaining side is quite plain, but does have what appears to be a small stamped marking - a duty mark, perhaps? Please see the extreme closeup photo - this marking is small!

Now, I can't find any hallmarks and so I'm wondering, is it terribly unusual for a silver item to have a duty mark without any hallmarks? Also, can anyone give me an idea of how old this spoon may be? Finally, any idea what the initials in the monogram might be?

Sorry for all the questions, but horn spoons are not exactly something I know much about! Anyway, here are a few photos:






Thanks!

 

It looks fibrous like rhino horn.

 

Thanks, Hollyblue. Yes, it does look like rhino horn, but I expect this spoon is probably made of something much more mundane, like cow horn.

 

Baleen

 

These spoons were normally made of cow horn, so I assumed this one was, too. Perhaps I was wrong!

 

Lots are, but this looks darker. If it's rhino it'll need a lot more documentation if it's to be sold.

 

Cow horn can be dark as well, so can other horns, like (water)buffalo.

 

You look to have three tiny hallmarks on that. But it's not unusual for wee silver to have no marking at all. Not sure it's cow, might be deer - which fits with Scottishness.

 

Don't think stag horn. Maybe ram's horn, also very Scottish.

 

Thanks to all who have replied. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts!

Ownedbybear, I’d wondered about the three tiny marks below what I think is a duty mark. If only I had an electron microscope to help me read them, if they are in fact hallmarks. Would be especially interesting to get a date letter.

 

I think it's more likely that the duty mark is a maker's mark: it's common for them to be larger than hallmarks.

 

Ah, I only thought duty mark because, to my eye, it seemed to resemble Queen Victoria’s mark, on the far right. Of course, this was just a guess!

 

Looks to me like the typical ox horn used for these spoons, they can range from light beige to almost black, sometimes various tones on one piece. It's probably Scottish Provincial, which often lacked proper hallmarks, and I'm having a hard time seeing those tiny marks as hallmarks (might measure them, along with the other mark) - they seem awfully small on what looks like a fairly small silver mount. Definitely don't know much about Scottish Provincial silver, but does seem odd to me for a duty mark to be present without hallmarks, but the round mark seems a bit unusual to me for a maker's mark...

~Cheryl

 

Ox! That makes sense. Highland coos, or muckle coos.

 

I don't believe this spoon is made from any bovine horn.Water buffalo can look fibrous on the outside but the interior isn't.

 

I had no idea that the material this spoon is made from would be such a mystery. I’d assumed it was run-of-the-mill cow horn but, earlier today, I got to examine a similar spoon at a local antique shop that is definitely cow horn, and it looks completely different than the one I have. Much lighter colour, almost transparent, and no visible grain.

So, back to baleen, or rhino horn? Or, just poorly polished ox horn?

 

This was just first clicking on the image to get full size, and then holding the "Control" key down and scrolling the monitor image as large as it will go.......don't think there is much there to see though.....IMHO........

 

BUT......then I saw this..........looking to the right......which might not make any
sense at all......I leave it up to you all!!!!!

 

I suppose it depends on the kind of cow, there are cows with dark horns.
Not Highland cattle:


This is dark oxhorn:

 

Sorry, just not seeing a mystery material here - no reason to believe it's anything other than the typical ox horn, there are still Scottish firms working with it, a simple internet search will show the wide variety of colors. https://www.google.com/search?tbm=i.....0...1ac.1.64.img..3.9.598.0...0.30x5HQJofik

Having restored more than one piece of horn, can assure you that it is, like all keratin, fibrous in nature, and with age and/or mistreatment, can split or crack, revealing a stringy structure (not that I see damage like that on your spoon). This is an old, but fairly clear pic of a silver handled salad set that had multiple problems, including the fork separated into two layers, which I carefully epoxied back together, and though it was sanded and oiled, the graining is visible:


Here is a dark horn spoon of the same type, without a nice engraved tip like yours, hallmarked for Birmingham, 1901: https://www.etsy.com/listing/573766863/pretty-horn-spoon-with-silver?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=horn spoon&ref=sr_gallery_12
~Cheryl