Silver Spoon Antiques

Wine labels (also known as bottle tickets), are a popular collecting area. The earliest form - an Escutcheon label by Louis Hamon, circa 1750 With my main interest being in antique sterling silver, I have focussed on labels made from the precious metal. They can also be found made from other things such as mother of pearl and porcelain.  Early collectors, such as Dr N. Penzer suggested 20 categories for labels. The Wine Label Circle, which is a collecting club for those interested in wine and sauce labels, reclassifies the categories, dividing the types of labels into 23 different categories in their authoritative book, Wine Labels:1730-2003, a worldwide history.  These categories are helpful for the majority of labels, although there will always be exceptions that will fit in to two or more. The 23 categories listed are: Escutcheons Rectangles Scrolls Ovals Crescents Stars and Buttons Sun in Splendour Bottle Collars and Neck Rings Single Letters and Cut-out

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