Period Find

[Flyfisher]

I found this item today while digging out the soil beneath what remains (very little ) of a section of sole plate in preparation for some repair work.

It looks to me very much like the handle of an item of cutlery and is made of china/porcelain. It's five inches long and has clearly broken off at one end.

Could it really be from a piece of porcelain cutlery? Any other ideas?

 

[philpjuk100]

We used to have a soup ladle and a set of salad servers with handles like that (I remember "superglueing" one) they were on the dresser before we moved house but seem to have dissapeared into the void that opens up when you move house!.

 

[LadyArowana]

Yes, I also think that a soup ladle ( or punch bowl ladle ) is the most likely explanation. It would probably have been part of a set with a tureen, something like this.

http://www.artvalue.com/auctionresult--delft-soup-tureen-cover-and-ladle-2959333.htm

 

[Flyfisher]

Thanks for those comments and thanks for finding that link LadyA. It certainly looks like the ladle handle in the link photo, though I'd have thought my handle was too small for a ladle; it's quite fine and is only 4 3/4 inches to the break, at which point it's so thin that I can't imagine it being much longer.

Perhaps these ladles were quite small?

At £500-800 it's a shame I didn't find the tureen as well . . . it would have paid for the repairs to the sole plate. :lol:

 

[skier-hughes]

Toothbrush?

 

[LadyArowana]

Thanks for those comments and thanks for finding that link LadyA. It certainly looks like the ladle handle in the link photo, though I'd have thought my handle was too small for a ladle; it's quite fine and is only 4 3/4 inches to the break, at which point it's so thin that I can't imagine it being much longer.

Perhaps these ladles were quite small?

At £500-800 it's a shame I didn't find the tureen as well . . . it would have paid for the repairs to the sole plate. :lol:

Ah, given the size, I revise my guess, probably for sauce rather than soup.

This piece probably closer. http://www.rhodonscollectables.co.uk/collectable.html?id=000952

 

[philpjuk100]

Great prices but I think we bought ours new in the 70s from the "potman" on the indoor market at derby!.

 

[Flyfisher]

Yes, a sauce ladle would probably make more sense. The one I found is decorated right along the handle, rather than the plainer one in LadyA's link, but it's otherwise very similar.

It's interesting to speculate how old it could be and also why it was where it was. I know that broken items were often buried in rubbish pits but I wouldn't have thought it would be so close to the house. In fact this item was pretty much under the house, or at least underneath where a section of sole plate once was, but I find it hard to believe it could be as old as that part of the house (supposedly 1550).

Just another mystery of life, the universe and everything. :wink: