Hi All,
I picked up this interesting fork today and would love to find out more about it. I love the the shape of the tines, very unusual.
I have attached some photos. Any information would be very much appreciated. Thanks.
I suspect that the tines were originally squared off as normal but wear over the years created a curve which has been further emphasised by somebody cutting off the worn tips.
The fork itself is not silver. “GS” stands for German Silver; this is an old name for nickel silver, a base metal alloy which contains, perversely, no silver at all. It is normally met in combination with electroplating as EPNS - electroplated nickel silver.
The manufacturer is Elkington & Co of Birmingham and, very unusually for non-silver, Elkingtons used a private date-coding system so we can say from the letter K here that the fork was made in 1896.
Phil
Many thanks Phil!! That is more information than I expected. As for the tines when I first saw the fork I thought the same as you but under closr examination it feels like a design choice, i could be completely wrong though.
As for the Dominion Line engraving, do you think this was done in the factory or was the fork bought and it was engraved elsewhere?
I am trying to fing out more about the Dominion Line, its all very interesting. Thank you so much for your help.
I would expect that for large orders such as this must have been the engraving (or more probably die-stamping) would have been done by Elkington themselves.