Storybook Scoop Spoons 900 Coffee Bean

[Traintime]

Eight spoons which appear to tell a story of coffee plantations in the island colonies. Appears to emulate Dutch tradition, but the mark is a 900 resting above a large crescent with a post rising up from the center "0" ending in a fixture, all of which I'm calling the banana boat mark. The set was obviously originally treated with a blackening agent to create an antique appearance (bad niello simulation)....mostly removed now showing the white residue where the black previously adhered. The central theme is the coffee bean and the cultivation, harvesting, and transport...not sure I got the order correct...maybe the bird is telling the story of what he sees? Any wild guess on who or where?

[Traintime]

Five years ago..833....familiar?: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=35828&p=94288&hili ... ean#p94288

[Traintime]

Details: url=https://postimages.org/][/url]

[Traintime]

More detail: url=https://postimages.org/][/url]





Carmen Miranda there is the only one missing the marks and the other seven are poorly applied.

[Traintime]

I guess the boatman is sailing a jangata, so Brazil is confirmed for the themes, but is the mark also one of these boats: http://www.indigenoussails.org/boat-typ ... da-brasil/

[Traintime]

Searching deep, back to 1847, the jangada which is typically viewed as a fishing boat was also used for transportation, and within view of the coffee farms: https://books.google.com/books?id=mYBQA ... de&f=false

[Traintime]

Definitely not a single story of coffee. The tree is a Brazilian date palm and the picker is working pods off the cocoa tree. Must just all be local scenics.

[Aguest]

I've found the coffee-bean-handle spoon with authentic Brazilian hallmarks and my coffee-bean-handle spoons were brought to the USA by a family who lived in Brazil for many years before emigrating to the USA :::

I think the examples of Brazilian hallmarks were from a hand-drawn page in Tardy's World Silver Hallmarks Book, but honestly I don't remember the exact source of the Brazilian hallmarks, I think I posted in the forums here about my Brazilian spoons ::::

[Traintime]

Thank you..the samples are tied together in the earlier 833 link. We seem to have a uniform chain transitioning through two marks and two standards. Since the marks cannot be definitely ascribed to anyone, I note the possibility that they are of a pseudo nature and perhaps borrowing from old Dutch Office marks (?) displayed here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=32028&p=80265&hilit ... 833#p80265

The diamond shape is self evident. The crescent with loop/diadem may resemble an anchor or a crescent under a star. While Brazil had an established marks system in the 1800's, there is apparently a lot of off-the-grid work. This might be similar to the Japanese souvenir spoons which are hard to link to a single specific maker but have common design.

[Traintime]

eBay has offered us yet another version...a group of date-palm tree spoons of single cast without the pointed drop, marked 900 next to our anchor (very clear with loop top) and an unreadable word mark (maybe five letters similar to distorted Bahia but not definite).

[Traintime]

ASCAS article on Brazilian silvermakers history and established marks: http://www.ascasonline.org/articoloMAGGIO146.html