My Resources Online

Some of the most useful information I have found-especially concerning dating the pieces in the donation-has been online. Here is a list of the sites I have used the most in the past few weeks:

http://www.silvercollection.it/: An extensive international index of silvermakers. Like Woodhead's Trademarks on Base-Metal Tableware, this site offers short blurbs about a variety of silver manufacturers. It goes a step further, however, providing pictures of hallmarks and year marks to accompany the descriptions.

http://www.925-1000.com/ : AKA The Online Encyclopedia of Silver. This site, like silvercollection.it, is an extensive international informational index of silvermakers complete with pictures. It also offers articles on such varied subjects as British Registry Dates and Navajo iconography, as well as useful tips for paper resources, caring for silver and place settings. I have referenced their silver glossary as well.

http://www.silvercollecting.com/: AKA The Online Encyclopedia of American Silver Marks. A similar index complete with pictures, this time focusing, as the title implies, on American makers.

http://freespace.virgin.net/a.data/glossary.htm: Known as the SilverMine, I have found their comprehensive glossary particularly indispensable in my object descriptions, enriching them by lending specificity and accuracy to my observations.

My Resources on Hand

The first thing we did was look through our resources at the museum to see if we had any relevant texts. We had a few, and some have been more useful than others as I work my way through this donation. In order of relevance to this project, they are as follows:


Woodhead, Eileen. 1991. Trademarks on Base-Metal Tableware. Ottawa, Canada: National Historic Sites Parks Service Environment Canada.

This extensive, alphabetically arranged index of makers of Britannia metal, iron, steel, copper alloys, and silver-plated goods has been indispensable. Though primarily concerned with late 18th century to early 20th century companies, for this project, its short synopses and reliable dates have been extremely helpful as many pieces in this donation are dating between 1900 and 1950.


Tompkins, George & Carolyn. 1987. The Handbook of Gorham Open Salt Dishes. Rockport, Maine: Archimedes Press.

Despite the fact that there are no open salt dishes in this donation, never mind Gorham ones, this resource has been quite helpful as the donation does include several examples of other types of hollowware made by the Providence-based Gorham Manufacturing Company. Of special interest to the museum given our mutual location in Providence, these pieces each bear blessedly clear pictorial year marks (or letter year marks pre 1885). A table of these marks is reproduced on p. 32 of this manual along with an explanation of their dating system and six pages of black and white photos depicting several examples of other markings used over the years.


Meriden Britannia Co., The. 1982. The Meriden Britannia Silver-Plate Treasury: The Complete Catalogue of 1886-7. New York, NY: Dover Publications Inc.

Though this resource predates most of the pieces in the collection, this gorgeous Dover Publishing reproduction contains 3,200 illustration of all Meriden's gold and silver plated goods from that time period in addition to their entire line of 1847 Rogers Bros. flatware. It was helpful to see full tea services from this time period to help distinguish between teapots, coffee pots, and chocolate pots. We do have one Meriden manufactured creamer from "The Northfield" in the donation, but I have yet to locate it in the catalogue; perhaps it is a later model.


Wyler, Seymour B. 1937. The Book of Old Silver. New York, NY: Crowne Publishers Inc.

A great resource for English, American and Foreign silver makers pre 1850 or so, containing all available hallmarks from that time including Sheffield plate marks and extensive information on the development of the silversmith industry in each area. Unfortunately this resources pre-dates the pieces in this donation, and I've been unable to get much use out of it.

A Few Words on How I Got Here

Ahh...there they are: the illustrious graduates of the '08 Masters in Food Culture: Communicating Quality Products at the University of Gastronomic Sciences near Parma in Italy. And there I am, Catherine Giarrusso, fifth lady from the left, proudly holding my degree certifying my grasp of Anthropology, History, Psychology, Technology, Semiotics, Marketing and Branding, and Journalism and Photography all as they relate to the world of food. It also indicates the completion of a two month internship about which I wrote my thesis: "Nailing the Niche: Strategic Planning for one of the First and Best Collective Resources in the Food Culture Field"; the resource in question being the collection at The Culinary Arts Museum of Johnson & Wales. To someone who had just spent the better part of the year doing semiotic analysis of chocolate advertisements and sitting in ice cream shops watching the behavioral patterns of consumers, the wealth of resources to be found in the museum's 300,000 plus-item collection was invigorating. The menu and corporate booklet section alone takes up an entire room--and those things are thin!

Much of my time interning at the museum was spent researching and producing text for a future exhibit on Rhode Island food traditions, but I also got to work on initiating a museum newsletter and examining the museum's mission within the academic community. It was fabulous to be working with people who so value the importance of our collective food history, which is why, after the holidays, when the museum had a temporary opening for a collections assistant while a coworker went on leave, I was thrilled to be part of the team again.

The first donation I am set to accession is this beautiful collection of silver-plated hollowware. I am about three weeks into the project and realizing I that I'm gathering quite an interesting body of knowledge together; worth preserving. So here it is. I went into this with nothing more than the significant amount of hours I logged watching BBC Prime TV shows about antiques when I was living and working abroad in Poland. The British really love the stuff, and it is completely addictive. From Bargain Hunters to Flog It! to Cash in the Attic, somehow it never got old. So I am thrilled to have this small opportunity to indulge my inner antiquing beast and learn about silver plate. I hope that having all this information in one place is helpful for other beginners unearthing their family heirlooms and rummaging around yard sales, or at least that it's amusing This is intended as a record of my white-gloved and magnified discoveries, and sources will be duly cited either in each article or linked in the sidebar to the right. Now... let's identify some hallmarks!