Silver Seal Top Spoon, 1632 by Richard Crosse

This is a good example of a Charles I period silver seal top. The spoon displays all the characteristics that you would expect from a seal top of this period - a cast, decorated baluster finial, hexagonal stem and fig-shaped bowl.

The spoon is very competitively priced owing to the small amount of wear to the decoration on the finial. An interesting feature to the gilt, flat plate of the seal is the dot-pricked engraving showing the points of the compass - N-E-S-W -  we are not quite sure of the reason, but they appear to be contemporary with manufacture.

The bowl retains its original shape, although the bowl mark is a little rubbed. The maker's mark to the reverse is slightly mis-struck and although the top section is missing it can be seen to be the first "RC" mark of the specialist spoonmaker Richard Crosse (see Jackson's Pickford edition first entry on page 116 where this mark is noted to have been used between 1632-33).

Overall this is a fine spoon and great value for money!