All were sold at the auction on October 24-25 including a William and Mary period trefid carrying marks for Thomas Havers of Norwich c.1697-1702.
This rare spoon, with the prick dot initials IB over TM to the terminal, has featured in a number of exhibitions and publications on East Anglian silver and had previously been sold by both Bonhams (as part of the Griffin collection in July 2002) and before that by How of Edinburgh. Estimated at £1500- 2000, it took £6700.
From a different source was a late 15th century silver-gilt seal-top spoon that more than doubled its estimate at £5800. Although the leopard’s head in the bowl is that used in London from 1530, the spoon is probably French c.1470.
It formed part of a private collection that included other spoons sold by the auctioneers in recent sales, and before that was in the Harvey Clarke collection and with How of Edinburgh. The latter illustrated it as an addendum in the third volume of English and Scottish Silver Spoons, describing it as “a freak, probably made by a Continental craftsman working in this country”.
More recently, specialist Tim Kent inspected the spoon for W&W and provided a revised opinion concluding it was entirely original.
