135 piece Silver Gilt Canteen of Cutlery, 1864

135-piece Silver-Gilt Canteen of Cutlery, London 1864 to 1877 by George Adams

The Service

We are proud to be offering a fantastic quality 18-place settings silver-gilt Victorian period canteen. All the spoons, forks and servers in this service are in the Grecian pattern and the complementing knives and carvers are in Newton Pattern. All pieces are gilded all over (gold-wash) to give an exhuberant air of the highest quality. 

There are 18 of each of the major dining pieces, with an 6 table forks that could be used for serving if required. The 12 table spoons are a bonus and in addition to serving purposes, would originally have been used for supping soup. There are two good-sized ladles that can be used for a variety of uses such as soup, gravy and even punch. 

All the pieces were hand-wrought in London by the very best flatware makers of the Victorian period – Chawner & Company and bear the GA makers mark of their owner, George Adams. The vast majority of spoons and forks bear hallmarks for London 1864 or 1870 and all the knives for 1877. The large soup ladle is actually a slightly later addition with hallmarks for London 1890 by Holland, Aldwinckle & Slater – this company bought out Chawner & Co.and all their dies and tooling in 1882. 

The pieces benefit from having no engravings and are in superb condition throughout with full and equal length fork tines and unworn spoon bowls. The knives all have replacement top quality Sheffield-made stainless steel blades fitted to the silver-gilt handles.

Grecian & Newton Patterns

Grecian Pattern was first produced by Chawner & Company in 1850 in readiness for the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. The design is a good example of Victorian Gothic architecturalism and is a much sought after flatware pattern today. The best examples, as in the case of this service, have the decoration displayed on both sides of the stem (“double-struck”) and so a good thick gauge of silver is required in its production.

Newton Pattern was named in honour of Sir Isaac Newton and is an extremely rare pattern. We have never previously encountered any knives in this pattern before and the knives in this service are truly outstanding. They make a wonderful complement to the Grecian pattern spoons and forks.

Components

This 135-piece service consists of the following:

Total weight of weighable silver  7160 grams (230 troy ounces). Additional to this weight are the 36 silver handled knives and the 5-piece carving set.

Condition

Excellent condition throughout. To find a Victorian service in this condition is quite a coup.

Presentation

This canteen is offered loose. We can supply anti-tarnish cutlery rolls on request. These navy blue rolls have individual pockets to hold 12 items per roll and are available for £15 each.

As with all the canteens available from our web-site, we are happy to send a sample place setting for approval, on receipt of a fully refundable surety payment, prior to purchasing this canteen.