PURE COIN with E. MEAD & CO
PURE COIN with E. MEAD & CO
An 8+” spoon sample from the Saint Louis firm of Edward Mead & Company. In this case, a typical “PURE COIN.” serifs stamp set far away from the firm mark. Perhaps suggesting that this was produced by a wholesale outfit in the east and only marketed by Mead as a retailer. [The known earlier mark of E. MEAD in cartouche seems to fit somewhere in the ten year gap between his old partnerships and the period when “& CO” was added (not in cartouche form)…that is around 1842-1852. Thorn gave it as c.1850, showing the mark, but calling him Edmund for some reason.] Now there are plenty of samples of similarly styled PURE COIN marks accompanying either maker or retailer stamps, sometimes with a hyphenation or missing the period at the end of the mark. Many can be placed on the east coast region where we might expect a wholesaler. Logically, a punch being of the same form should be coming from a singular source. Unless there was a mail catalogue supplier to these many geographically separated jeweler/watchmaker/alleged silversmiths locations, then it would seem they derived these products from a lone manufacturer or complex. And in this case, the spoon is all the way out in Missouri long after Mead has left his New England origins. So, what’s going on here….makers or simply retailers? And what might this say about their other products?
Re: PURE COIN with E. MEAD & CO
St. Louis directory pages for 1840-41 and 1842 showing Mead & Adriance splitting into separate firms with Mead claiming to be a manufacturer of silver ware:
