Gorham Round Bowl cast sterling souvenir spoons

The vast majority of antique American sterling souvenir spoons that you'll ever see have been embossed. That is, the detail on them was created with 30- to 80-ton presses, squeezing two dies together with a cold piece of sterling silver between them. The dies were engraved with the mirror image of the pattern desired, so this created details in high relief on the spoon. Sometimes the bowls also were embossed with dies. Other times the bowls were left plain, then engraved at the factory or at a local jewelry shop, or etched with acid to decorate the bowl.

During the period of approximately 1890 to 1892, Gorham Mfg. Co. of Providence, RI, produced a limited number of cast spoons. The cast spoons were made by pouring molten sterling silver into molds that had been created with the design of both the handle and the bowl. By approximately 1893, Gorham had ceased casting spoons but continued to produce large numbers of embossed spoons.

Cast spoons can be recognized by their heavy weight and softer detailing than the very fine detail imparted to most embossed spoons. The round-bowl spoons illustrated here generally measure between 5 and 5½ inches in length. The handles have varying detailing on the reverse, in some cases relatively plain but in most cases continuing the theme from the front to produce a 3-D replica of something (see R. E. Lee finial on the Virginia spoon, for example).

Some spoons are stamped on the back with the name of a retailer. Others that don't have a local retailer's stamp have "Gorham Mfg. Co." stamped on them, in addition to the lion-anchor-G mark. Some of the round bowl spoons were marked by Gorham with a model number. On some spoons (Charleston, for instance) the markings are on the side of the spoon rather than the reverse, so as to minimize interference with the artistic theme of the spoon.

In any event, all the information available on any particular spoon is shown together with its picture. Many of the pictures contain links to web sites with additional relevant information. All spoon shown are from my own collection and the collections of Pat Balach, Norma Bowen, Connie Halket, and Ann Rolfe. Thank you, spoon collector friends!

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Ashville, NC	Bar Harbor	Boston Faneuil Hall	Boston Tea Party
Boston Old State House	Cambridge The Signal Lights	Charleston Fort Sumter	Chicago Fort Dearborn
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Cincinnati Art Museum	Cincinnati City Seal	Cincinnati T-D Fountain	Cleveland Garfield Memorial
Detroit	Evangeline Shadow of Teche	Genesee Falls	Louisville Daniel Boone
Macon Fort Hawkins	Maryland	Memphis Tennessee	Minneapolis Minnehaha Falls
Mount Vernon	New Orleans	Newport The Lime Rocks	Newport The Stone Mill
New York Brooklyn Bridge	New York Dime	New York Quarter	Norfolk St. Paul's Church
	Click on thumbnail to see enlargement.
Old Orchard Beach	Philadelphia Liberty Bell	Philadelphia Independence Hall	Philadelphia Wm. Penn
Pittsburgh Ft. Duquesne	Portland, Maine Whitehead	President's Mansion White House	Providence "What Cheer"
General Putnam	St. Augustine Ponce de Leon	St. Louis Eads Bridge	Saratoga Springs
Savannah	Spartanburg General Morgan	Virginia R. E. Lee Statue