The tiny spoons lying there amiss on the auction table reminded me of a woman’s hair tousled by the wind. They were scattered, without order, as if someone had just tossed them about along with their display cases.
Spoons of any type are not something that I often gravitate toward at auction. I never understood the lure of souvenir spoons, or the point of them. I suppose that collections don’t have to have a point, just a like. You buy too many of a thing because they are adorable and/or endearing.
These were not the types of spoons you use to sip tea or coffee from a cup to gauge its heat, or to scoop up a tiny nibble of ice cream in a bowl. These were collector’s spoons that were more aesthetic than functional.
But as I looked at the places represented by a mascot or a symbol at the tip of the handles, I was struck by the variety of them. The spoons could easily have been the chronicle of a family’s vacations: The U.S. Capitol, Seattle, Pennsylvania – the Keystone State, Nashville, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Hampshire, Scotland – all picked up in some tourist shop the same way I pick up refrigerator magnets. Or they may have represented journeys dreamed of, the gift of a friend in whom you’ve confided.
Who wouldn’t find the “I Love Las Vegas” spoon sweet with its little brass slot machine? Or the red cardinal, the official bird of Illinois? And what about those tiny blue and white ceramic Dutch shoes?
I had assumed that these silver-plated and pewter spoons of places were worth very little except for their sentimental value to collectors. In my research, though, I found that the world of the souvenir-spoon hobbyist is not so narrow. There’s more to it than the places one visited on vacation. The best are made of silver, and they can be commemorative: a new baby, a token of love, an event, according to the online-only Souvenir Spoon Museum.
As I began my research, little did I know what fascinating information would turn up:
The first souvenir spoon was commemorative. It was made in 1889 by Galt & Bros in Washington, DC, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of George Washington and it featured his image. It was followed in 1890 by the Salem Witch Spoon, which set off a rage of souvenir-spoon collecting that didn’t subside until World War I. Spoon collecting got a big boost during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair when the millions of visitors took one home as a memento, according to an article in the newsletter of the American Spoon Collectors.
The most common spoons – which are worth less than $5 – are a presidential series by Wm. Rogers and a sterling Eagle series by Manchester, according to the website souvenirspoons.com. Also pretty common are state capitals and landmarks. The site offers information on buying and selling spoons on eBay. The Spoon Museum also has a question and answer page.
It’s hard to put a value on a silver spoon. It could change depending on whether ti is offered by an antique shop or a flea-market vendor, according to souvenirspoons.com. How much a spoon is worth, the site says, is what someone is willing to pay for it. And that’s the case for just about anything collectible. I found silver-plated spoons selling on one site for 50 cents to $5 each. A retail site was selling silver spoons for lots more.
The Souvenir Spoon Museum, which is managed by the Spoon Collectors of Southern California, offered exhibits on all kinds of silver spoons from animals to african Americans to Native Americans to plants to coins to World Fairs to Bon Bons (they have wide round scoops).
I was curious about the African American spoons. The site gave a history of how African Americans were depicted in the country and the spoons that showed it. It noted that spoons with black images were both benign and racist, and warned viewers of this before they looked at the exhibits.
The site offered history on the spoons written by expert collectors. There were the ubiquitous watermelon and other stereotypically embossed spoons, along with Uncle Remus, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, cotton pickers and banjo players. The most interesting was an engraved spoon with the face of Frederick Douglass. On the handle was a timeline of the important periods of his life – from 1838 when he escaped from slavery to 1895 when he died.
The American Spoon Collectors newsletter article noted that spoons with African American images are hot collectibles.
You should know whether the spoon you buy is silver or silver-plated. The Spoon Museum, again, spoke to this.
As an Indiana boy, I collected belt buckles and landmark pocket knives. I only have a few that survived the decades. My wife, from New Jersey and 9 yrs younger collected souvenir spoons all of which managed to stay grouped in a tarnished mass. Go figure. Thanks for your research and article. Your writing is well balanced and easily rolls itself into the mental pictures that my artist-painter brain illustrates as I read. I wonder if you have any non article creative rows of words that I might run between gleaning cleaver thought from obscure reference. Share and I will.