Do the British use the term "Patent Pending?"

I've been following an ID query on eBay in which a piece of silverplated serving flatware is marked "patent pending." I have always thought that this term would not appear on a British piece, but the OP is now convinced that the maker's mark is that of a Sheffield maker.

Before I open my big mouth to suggest otherwise, I'd like input from our UK boardies on the use of the term.

 

Off hand I'd say that it is used.

 

Thanks, AF and Davey. Your description is in the same time of usage as ours.

I still have serious issues with the OP's designation of a particular maker (which apparently came to him/her from someone outside of the thread.) But at least the patent terminology doesn't make it "patently false."

 

I agree with af and Davey - I've all sorts of bits with PAT PENDING on them, and in most cases they say MADE IN ENGLAND as well.

Any photo of the maker's mark? Or a pointer at the thread?

 

The OP did not post pictures of the marks although he does describe them in the thread. There was at least one more thread (which I can't find right now) in which he asked for information about the Nathaniel Smith he has decided is the maker.

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Collectibles-Art/What-is-this/m-p/23481432#U23481432

I assume the patent in question has to do with the mechanism that opens and closes the cover over the spoon's bowl.

 

Well, I know what it is, anyhow. Those were and are used for silver service. If you can't learn the trick of using two separate spoons, you use one of those.

I suspect the PAT PEND refers to the whole shape of the thing, rather than jsut the mechanism.

Spinach server is absurd. ANY cook who sent out spinach so soggy as to need squidging by the waiter would be shot.

And Nathaniel Smith, my &(^! . That's from no earlier than the 30s, I suspect. 1930s. More probably post WW2.

 

Owned -- Spinach in my childhood home:
Boil til the color of army fatigues, spoon into a tea strainer and squish (or squidge, if you prefer), plop on dinner plate.

The liquid that did not get squished leaks out into the potatoes and the pork chop. The potato is eaten. The pork chop is eaten. The barrow-shaped mound of spinach remains. Mention is made of the starving children in China. Mention is made of sitting until the pile disappears...somehow. Mention is made of my obvious need for iron in my system. (?!) Tears. More tears. Huge envy of those Chinese children. Two hours later, the cold, slimy mess goes down my throat.

My brother had a much better solution. He stuffed such things in the underpinnings of the dining room table.

 

Oh, Cheyl, I'm howling!

My mama loved spinach, as do I. But then, she would serve it with either a mountain of butter, and nicely properly drained. Or, a puree with double cream, butter and nutmeg. Yum.

 

The school dinners at my primary school were edible only for the very hungry, like the poor people. The amount of education I missed by spending large chunks of the afternoon sitting by a plate of cold stodge and slime may account for my failure to rule the world by now.

A single minded and stubborn boy can defeat the system by sheer bloody mindedness. Maybe that was the lesson I learned without knowing that that was what they were trying to teach me.
I also learned to resist moral blackmail, the poor children of Africa were more than welcome to my rejected dinner, and the somewhat outdated plea that sailors had given their lives to bring this food caused me to remark, in all innocence, that the war had in fact been over for several years now just led to further punishment for insolence. Nobody likes a smart kid.

To this day I won't eat cooked greens and loathe the merest trace of onion.

 

Here ya go Af....a sprinkle of onion bits too????

 

Not only unpalatable but don't think that is even a silver spoon. :-(

 

I remember being in third or fourth grade -- my younger sister and I did eat in the cafeteria because Mamma and Daddy wanted us to have a "hot lunch" (although at home lunch was "dinner" and dinner was "supper"). The cost way back then was $1.00 per week for 5 "hot" lunches. The $1 bill was put in a pocket each Monday when I (and later with my little sister) set out to walk to school almost a mile away). (Are y'all tsk-tsk-ing yet?)

One day (out of many days) spinach was on the preordained lunch plate. It was always a mound of green glop except for one day when there was a certain "crunch" to the spinach near the bottom of the pile. Good grief, I had raised my eating utensil without seeing a large, dead, still-intact-down-to-its-"fuzz"-and-wings bumble bee and again without realizing it had bitten into it. The other students at the long cafeteria table (probably the boys, but that I can't say for sure) helped me reassemble the bumble bee so I could take it back to the lunch-line to show the serving ladies.

My parents also gave me a quarter each Monday to pay in advance for the five-cent ice cream "dixie cup" each afternoon in the classroom.

 

I eat a lot of spinach and other greens, veggies, so I'd eat that if it were seasoned properly, Shiloh! It looks like something we'd eat in the deep south!

I remember when public school lunches were free but the milk cost 2cents.

Oh yes, there was the 5cent dixie cup of FLAVORED ICE to buy from a neighborhood house on the walk home from school too! Oh heck, I remember when a banana-flavored popsicle from the neighborhood truck cost 6cents! haha!

 

I am so allergic, am I the only one who cannot eat with silver utensils?

I'll bet I could eat with 14-18k gold utensils though!!! haha!!!

 

As a kid, I loved spinach so much, Mom would bribe me with promise of getting the leftover spinach for dessert (my brothers finally clued me in). She was often trying to get me to eat liver, I could push that disgusting piece of nastiness around the plate for hours, until someone took pity on me or they forgot and let the dog wander in...

As for the spoon, agree with Bear on the dating, have seen a couple of patents for similar serving spoons from the 1930s-40s - it could drain off a sauce after picking out a piece of meat or veggies, could be used as tongs for picking up a piece of meat or whatever, and could spoon up gravy, using the cover to strain out lumps.

~Cheryl

 

Antidiem, I learned the hard way (one and only one but it was a doozy kidney-stone attack) to avoid eating dairy/high-calcium-content foods in close proximity time-wise to greens high in oxalic-acid.

When my kidney stone(s) were "tested for content" the doctor gave me that sage bit of advice. I haven't had another attack and it has been about thirty years since I had that first and only so far kidney stone attack. That "no-calcium with greens" warning includes cheese, not just milk.

 

I was once unable to understand what a dinner lady was saying, so, being genuinely curious, I said "Are you deaf?" because that might explain the failure of communication.

Big huff and off to what you'd call the principal. More insolence.

I think they might have expelled me if I had not been one of only two in thr year likely to win a scholarship to the grammar school.

I can't help thinking in retrospect that they found me a bit odd.

 

Just a bit? I must be really odd; I like spinach. I don't even mind it cooked. Of course a good knob of butter and some salt does help it quite a bit. It's preferable raw. School spinach doesn't bear thinking on. About the only thing that might be worse is overcooked brussels sprouts with no seasoning. I love brussels sprouts, but only when cooked properly.

 

I dearly love brussels sprouts and all other cruciferous veggies I have had the pleasure of being introduced to. Yum-yum.