Collecting Spoons Isn’t Utilitarian
10.02.06By Deanna DahlsadAs it is with most collectors, your collection isn’t some net and tidy set of limited items. Sure, you may start out with say collecting the complete works of some dead author, which is rather limited; but eventually you find your passion sweeps past those books. Now you’re looking for photos, biographies on the author, letters s/he wrote, and other personal effects. If the author was an expert in dogs, your begin collecting dog figurines, or your collection spills past this one author into related works by genre or other theme. The same is true of other collections.
For example, my love of classic movies led to Gene dolls. And now spoons.
How did I make this leap? Well, it began accidentally with two cruets and a reamer. But what really brought me to the hunt for spoons was Shelley Stamp’s book, Movie-Struck Girls: Women & Motion Picture Culture After the Nickelodeon.
In the book, the author reminds us of an America where women were seen as the keeper of the family morals and thus the moderators of entertainment. In order to get women to approve of movies and the theaters, they needed to get women themselves into the theaters and like them. They did so by addressing the decor of the cinemas, but also via premiums & tie-ins featuring the images of film stars. Objects bearing the likeness of the stars, such as postcards, calendars, satin pillow tops, and spoons were not only made to appeal to the domestic interests of women, but were serialized in order to get them to, you guessed it, collect them all.
It’s this history of the films, both in terms of the stars and the marketing to women, which captures me as a collector. So now, I find myself on the hunt for affordable spoons from the early 1900’s which feature silent film stars.
I’m not the only one surprised to find themselves collecting spoons. The folks at HotPipes.com found themselves in the same situation: “We’ve been trapped into collecting spoons that incorporate cast, embossed, painted or otherwise applied bagpipes and/or pipers.” (See their collection.)
And many others collect spoons for other reasons, such as location and religious reasons.
We are not spoon collectors, just collectors who happen to want spoons too.
The word “souvenir” is French for “remember.” Travelers love to bring home a little something from the places they’ve visited, something to help them remember days spent vacationing far from everyday headaches and worries. In the late 1800s someone came up with the idea of creating souvenir spoons and a collecting craze was born.
The popularity of sterling silver souvenir spoons means that there are many antique spoons available on the market for reasonable prices. Most spoons fetch $5 to $40, but a rare spoon will cost more. While they can be found in antique shops and malls, for sheer volume of choice the internet is your best bet. As always, when purchasing online make sure to ask a lot of questions, especially about the condition of the spoon. Dings and scratches don’t necessarily show up in photos. Also, souvenir buyers frequently had their` names engraved onto the spoons which can bring down the resale value, so make sure to ask about any inscriptions.
Another area of spoon collecting is more modern mini souvenir spoons. These spoons are usually stainless steel or silver plated with an enameled design at the top. These spoons are inexpensive and colorful. They often bear the name of a state, but also can be found for amusement parks, state parks and other tourist attractions. Some like to collect one from every state they’ve visited and display them on the wall, while others aim for a full set of 50 states.
