Pewter Spoon Information

History in America

• Britain sent millions of pewter spoons to colonial America in the 17th and 18th centuries. British pewterers cast pewter spoons in molds in a variety of styles. Generally speaking, however, earlier styles have more rounded bowls while the bowls of later colonial styles are more elongated.

Modern Pewter Spoons

• Because colonial pewter held lead in addition to tin, lead poisoning was common among colonial American upper classes. (Writings from the era often mention stomach pains, among other symptoms.) Pewterers replaced lead with antinomy around the Revolutionary period, and modern pewter is a mixture with 90 percent tin mixed with copper, bismuth or antimony. Because of the changes in pewter's constituents, older pewter spoons are heavier and tarnish faster as well as oxidize to a dark silver-gray color.

Earlier Styles

• Five main types of pewter spoons exist: Puritan, Dog Nose, Hanoverian, Neoclassical and Fiddle-Back. Puritan spoons are quite simple, with rounded bowls and minimal handles. Dog Nose spoons are so named because they have a small bump at the end of the handle, like a dog's nose. Hanoverian spoons, also known as Mid-Rib spoons, have a rib that extends down the center of the handle and a longer bowl than the Puritan or Dog Nose spoons

Later Styles

• Made between 1780 and 1810, or thereabouts, the Neoclassical spoon has a longer and more egg-shaped bowl and longer handle than earlier pewter spoon types. While some may have a rib like the Hanoverian spoon, it's not as prominent and is sometimes completely absent. Fiddle-back spoons were British-produced and imported to America from 1800 to 1840. These have a small rib and a sort of fiddle-back handle where the wide end of the handle cuts in before tapering into the bowl.