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Monday, October 1, 2012

What is this?

A blog reader purchased this item on eBay. It's from Walker & Hall and is just under 5 inches long. The seller said it was a sardine server.
 
The buyer wonders if this truly is a sardine server. You can't tell from the picture but the bowl slants downward. Normally, a serving piece is designed to be used with the pattern facing up. For this piece, the angle of the bowl with respect to the pattern does not make sense for a sardine server.
 
If you have any ideas, post a comment.

 
 

Picture courtesy www.eBay.com

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it possible it is half of a pair of tongs? That were cut apart and were sold separately

Paul said...

If I did not know that this was just a single side, I would say that it was a pair of sandwich tongs. Are there any clues as to the age?

bp said...

Wild conjecture here. Would it be used to skim perhaps? I'm think the cream from a cup of milk or the fat from a bowl of soup?

Anonymous said...

This looks very much like a sardine fork. Gorham made one similar in the "Royal Oak" pattern.

bp said...

I need to brush up on my Victorian minutia, I had no idea such a thing existed.
http://www.thefind.com/kitchen/info-sterling-sardine-fork

Anonymous said...

Looks like a Victorian baby food pusher. The link shows one in the center of the photo, set of three baby tableware. The idea was that kids were not to touch food with their fingers, and the pusher aided them in getting food into the spoon. The site shows lots of other odd Victorian pieces, all relating to their abhorrence of touching food.
http://www.elledecor.com/culture/odd-and-unusual-utensils#slide-13

Queitsch Hof said...

This is a European style sugar cube tong which has had the top part cut off.