Ice Cream Fork & Spoon Caveat Emptor

This is a follow up to an earlier post, "Made Up Sterling Flatware Pieces".

I'm seeing a number of sterling "Ice Cream Forks" and "Ice Cream Spoons" being advertised for sale. Be aware that many of these are not original pieces from the manufacturer. They are pieces that have been created from other pieces. For example, someone might take a spoon and carve out tines to make it look like an ice cream fork.

To be fair, most of the sellers have identified the pieces as being "custom". Also, many manufacturers did make legitimate ice cream forks and spoons.

So, read the fine print carefully before you buy.

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Made Up Sterling Flatware Pieces

You will sometimes see a sterling flatware piece offered for sale that you have never heard of. There may be a good reason - the manufacturer may never have created such a piece! We have seen some recent examples on eBay that are obviously not found in the real pattern's list of offerings. In most cases, the eBay description has disclosed that the piece was "custom" but sometimes the disclosure is buried in fine print. We don't want to malign any sellers so our example eBay ad below is a fake (we haven't seen an ad for a sweet potato fork). But it's close enough for you to be aware of what you might run across.

Buttercup by Gorham Sweet Potato Fork
This sweet potato fork was custom manufactured by a professional silversmith.

How can it be a true Gorham piece if it was "custom manufactured"? In some examples we've seen, the seller has cut out the two center tines of a standard luncheon fork and has called what's left some special type of serving piece (and has tried to charge a lot more).

Our Made Up "Sweet Potato Fork"

Following is a paragraph regarding this subject that we found in a popular book, Warman's Sterling Silver Flatware Value & Identification Guide.

Some... dealers are making up pieces, and in many cases are not telling the public. They are making cheese scoops from tablespoons, horse radish scoops from dessert spoons, baby pushers from teaspoons, and the market is loaded with asparagus servers made using dinner knife handles... Plain serving tablespoons are pierced to produce the slotted tablespoons, ice cream forks are made from teaspoons, especially in the early patterns, and so are the ice cream spoons. The only way one can tell the difference is via knowledge, knowing the original form of the bowl in the pattern.

So, always read the description carefully. Make sure you know what you buying.
English server, spinach fork, baked potato fork, pierced serving spoon, nut pick, olive spoon, relish scoop, horseradish scoop, brandy warmer, pate server
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