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

Benjamin Tait was based in Dublin. He produced quite a large amount of silversmith in his relatively short career. He worked from around 1784 to 1791. His workshop was near Bride Street, in the inner city of of Dublin. His most common makers marks have a serrated edge and are clearly recognisable. Example of Benjamin Tait's maker mark He made a number of different pieces, but appears to have specialised in flatware. Below are four examples of his bright-cut pattern sugar tongs. His tongs are often much smaller than other Irish examples, the first three displayed measure between 13.5-14.5cm. The fourth pair are of a more common Irish size and measure just under 17cm. Bright-cut Sugar Tongs with rounded shell bowls by Tait Bright-cut Sugar Tongs with concave design Bright-cut Sugar Tongs with flower pattern Large pair of Sugar Tongs by Tait, in a much more typically Irish size and style