Sucket Spoon, 1680

A sucket spoon was a fruit eating utensil with two prongs to one end and a spoon bowl to the other. Suckets were a late 17th century delicacy consisting of dried fruit and citrus peels in a sweet syrup. The fork end was designed for spearing the fruit, while the small spoon was used for scooping up the syrup.

This spoon has a flat, plank-like stem in the manner of early trefid spoons and will date to the 1670's/80's. Sucket spoons from the 17th century are very rarely fully marked and often not marked at all. This example bears a maker's mark which appears to be "TA" with 3 dots above - this is almost certainly the mark of Thomas Allen as identified  by Tim Kent in "London Silver Spoonmakers" and Mitchell "Silversmiths in Elizabethan & Stuart England" on pages 502/3. Thomas Allen was apprenticed to John King who was a specialist spoonmaker between 1668 and 1675.

This piece is a particularly fine example with the shaped centre of the flat stem engraved with original "RR" ownership initials. The spoon is in fine condition throughout (very minor wear to bowl tip) and a great surviving example of its type.