Home

The first quirk 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 obligation, they are as follows:


Woodhead, Eileen. 1991. Trademarks on Base-Metal Tableware. Ottawa, Canada: Civil 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 essential. Though primarily concerned with late 18th century to early 20th century companies, for this project, its short synopses and unfailing 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 Brazen Salt Dishes. Rockport, Maine: Archimedes Press.

Despite the fact that there are no open salt dishes in this largesse, 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 Caution-based Gorham Manufacturing Company. Of special interest to the museum given our mutual location in Providence, these pieces each provoke blessedly clear pictorial year marks (or letter year marks pre 1885). A table of these marks is reproduced on p. 32 of this instructions 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-Dish Treasury: The Complete Catalogue of 1886-7. New York, NY: Dover Publications Inc.

Though this resource predates most of the pieces in the hoard, this gorgeous Dover Publishing reproduction contains 3,200 illustration of all Meriden's gold and silver plated goods from that patch period in addition to...

Read more...