Skip to main content

Modern Scottish Provincial Silver - Alexander Richie of Iona

A nice silver spoon turned up recently on a trip to regional NSW.  The dealer wasn't sure if it was silver, indeed the hallmarks were so small, I couldn't decipher them either.  But what did stand out was the impressive Celtic design to the spoon and the marks I could read that said 'AR' and 'IONA'.  I remembered reading a little somewhere about a silversmith, Alexander Richie, working on the Scottish island.  So I purchased the spoon (along with a few other pieces of silver) for a good price.

A Jam Spoon by Alexander Richie of Iona, Scotland

It turned out this spoon was indeed silver and had been hallmarked in Glasgow in 1931.

Hallmarks and Engraving of Richie Spoon
Alexander Richie, along with his wife, Euphemia, began making silverware and jewellery (as well as wood and other metal work) at the end of the nineteenth century.  He sent items from Iona to both Glasgow and Chester to be hallmarked.  Most of his pieces have the Celtic or Viking influence that this spoon shows.

Celtic/Viking influenced design
For a great website with further information about Alexander, as well as numerous examples of his work, check out http://www.alexander-ritchie.co.uk/.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women Silversmiths - Dorothy Langlands of Newcastle

Did you know that there have been women silversmiths for hundreds of years?   Women have been noted as silversmiths for hundreds of years.  Widows would often continue on the business of their husbands (often placing their maker's mark in a lozenge) and daughters would enter business partnerships with relatives also in the trade.  Dorothy Langlands was a widow who continued business for 10 years after her husbands death.   For sixty years the Langlands family were the largest manufacturers of silverware in Newcastle, England.   Dorothy Langlands  was the wife of John Langlands II and she took over her husband's business in 1804 when he died. She retired in 1814 and died in 1845.  This means we can date all silver marked with her maker's mark (D.L) to 1804-1814.  This is helpful because a lot of smaller silver items would not have been stamped with the date letter.   Below are two examples of her work.  A nice pair of bright-cu...
Post a Comment
Read more

What's the rarest? Silver from Scottish Provincial towns.

Antique Scottish Provincial silver is one of the most interesting and confusing areas of silver collecting. There were numerous towns that were producing silver in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There were no regulations governing these towns, so each town (or silversmith) came up with their own marks. These were often related to town symbols or coat of arms. It is often the question of rarity that wildly affects the value for these pieces of silver. Below is a table of suggested rarity: Scarce Rare Very Rare Aberdeen Arbroath Cupar Dumfries Ballater Ellon Dundee Banff Fochabers Glasgow (pre-Assay office) Canongate Forres Inverness Elgin Leith Perth Greenock Nairn Iona Peterhead Montrose St. Andrews Paisley Stonehaven Tain Wick This list is published by antiquesilverspoons.co.uk and is based on the research of Richard Turner (who's book, A Directory of Scottish Provincial Silversmiths and Their Ma...
2 comments
Read more