John George Graves spoon plus one

[LotVer]

I have a collection of silverware I am going through trying to identify. These two spoons have the same pattern and are both marked "Oregon Silver". I have found no information online regarding what Oregon silver is, but interestingly, my reverse image search found the same pattern marked as Afghan silver with a different maker.

The two spoons come from my aunt and are at least as old as the 1950s, if not earlier. My grandmother was married in 1918 and has a lot of silverware that was either gifted at marriage or inherited from her mother/sisters.

https://1drv.ms/i/s!AookpmmlX6JRi8cWboa ... w?e=ZXzTPF
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AookpmmlX6JRi8cVTrD ... Q?e=bMLgko

The maker for the jam spoon is (I believe) John George Graves, Sheffield 1911-1914. I think Sheffield. The crown seems to be 'silver' but I think it is one of the marks that were used on silverplate, given the lack of other marks. The other spoon (teaspoon?) isn't marked but has the same RD216322 marking. I haven't been able to track down the year this registration refers to. I found a list with the starting number on the site but I couldn't understand how to use that list to determine what year this refers to.

I have a few things I want to sort out, but I am trying to understand why this pattern was made by both J. G. Graves, Sheffied, and also Frederick Whitehouse, FW, Afghan silver (found for sale on Etsy or eBay). What is the name of the pattern and was there a company that both worked for that produced the pattern? Does the RD number mean anything and help me identify the pattern?

[dognose]

Hi,

Welcome to the Forum.

Please embed your images as very few members will click on such links.

https://postimages.org (choose 'Share', then copy the 'Hotlink for forums' code) is recommended. Do not use Photobucket or Dropbox.

Trev.

[LotVer]

Embedded images

[Essexboy Found]

Hello, welcome to the Forum, in my opinion the most informative part of your images is the "Rd" number. That is a number generated from the 2nd system of the British Registry of Patterns. There is a full explanation of the 2 systems on our site found via the "Resources" tab at the top right of our pages. The number gives you a date when the "pattern" was registered. The number on the spoons gets a date of 1893. Note, date when pattern was registered, items can be produced for several years onwards.
A quick explanation of my view of the apparent 2 different makers is that there is only 1 maker. We may need to come to the maker again. Neither of the spoons are actual "solid silver", there is no silver standard guarantee mark. Where is the standing lion for English silver, or maybe thistle for Scottish silver? They are electroplated style with trade marking to encourage the un-wary to think they could be silver. A rule was passed circa 1890 to prohibit the use of a crown on British silverplated items. The crown did have an association with silver, being the former mark put on Sheffield hallmarked 925/1000 parts silver items.
I have an image of some marks very similar to the marks you believe are John Graves. It is in my unknown image file. Most often Sheffield's John Graves has the initials close together as "JGG" and with an "S" to underline "Sheffield made". I view the separate "G" as an indication of a Glasgow concern. Probably not the maker, but a retailer of cutlery, maybe jeweller, department store or ironmongers who ordered the spoons.
The pattern on you 2 spoons, the dots, drops and swags is seen on huge quantities of items in that late Victorian period, thus decorations may be similar over many makers.
Your "Rd" number may eventually find an owner for that "Oregon Silver" and if you check up on the rough dates I gave you you can work out a fair dating for you spoons.
Hopefully my reply will generate a bit more from other Forum members. I am just giving my view, but I will also have a look again at my unknown images file. Actually there is more than 1 of them.

Fishless

[Essexboy Found]

Hello again LotVer, have you got the Registry Date numbers sorted now? 205240 starts 1893 and 224720 starts 1894. I have been thinking more about your mention of Frederick Whitehouse of Birmingham and maybe I had not grasped the idea that the Afghan Silver item would have been with the 216322 registration number on as well. I screened eBay (class listings with good images are a boundless resource) with that 21322 and found a Whitehouse fork and 2 sets of maybe enlightening sugar tongs. The "spoon" style tongs had the decorative pattern, but had different manufacturing marks on.



One set is plainly marked for F.Whitehouse proclaiming their Afghan Silver trademark, while the second set has different markings including a pictorial mark. That pictorial mark is fairly well known in electroplated cutlery terms. I see it as a lion with a front foot on a football, but I think it was supposed to be a world globe. You need to now imagine the letters are "BHA" and that is "Barnett Henry Abrahams". This concern is not a maker of cutlery, but was a London seller of huge amounts of cutlery (and many other items) from the 4th quarter of the 19th century and into the 1st half of the 20th century. B.H.Abrahams is widely mentioned on the Forum but check here.
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=30091&p=85392#p85392

Now to your question, who made your spoons. If my belief that "JG" was a Glasgow retailer and Frederick Whitehouse of Birmingham made items for other retailers, Whitehouse could have made your Oregon Silver spoons. Whitehouse was in business at that turn of the 20th century period and may have owned the pattern number, though it is possible pattern number registries were tradeable commodities. It may alternatively have been usurped, as Whitehouses did, for a short period, use another trademark owned by another company. The pattern on your spoons is "RD 21322" and likely made in Birmingham by the Fred Whitehouse concern. Oregon Silver may be a trade name used by Whitehouse or may belong to the unknown "JG" concern. It is often a waiting game to get that clinching snippit prove or disprove a suggestion. I will post some Oregon Silver images elsewhere on Forum in the new year and see if we can get some more information.
Use the Forum search facility with Birmingham and then Whitehouse the are several posts to scan, but here is one I made quite a bit earlier.
viewtopic.php?p=210972#p210972

Fishless

[dognose]

The new alloy which is placed on the market under the name "Afghan silver," and the registered trade mark C. T. & S., is experiencing a ready sale, and the manufacturers now find it necessary to issue a circular to the trade in which jewellers are cautioned against the number of spurious imitations which are put forward as "Afghan silver," but which are in most cases either brass or German silver thinly plated with nickel. The "Afghan silver" on the other hand is an alloy, which, while always retaining its brightness in wear, is of the same whiteness throughout, and has without doubt a future before it, being well adapted for many uses besides those to which it is at present applied, which have hitherto been confined to articles of jewellery for personal wear. As the manufacturers claim to be able to produce it as cheaply as German silver can be obtained, it should quickly supersede the latter as soon as its merits become generally appreciated.

Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 1st September 1887

Trev.