More on this spoon from Harry Merrick

#76 Custom shaped and engraved Paye & Baker spoon with Type 1 bowl Harry Merrick Post of 7/20/23: SPOON OF THE WEEK

This week’s spoon is courtesy of the Santa Cruz Island Foundation and its president, Marla Daily, who also provided some of the photos of their recent acquisition. Nominally this teaspoon can be attributed to Paye and Baker due to the appearance of their Type 1 Avalon scene embossed bowl and their maker’s mark, but it is unlike any spoon found in their 1908 catalog. The spoon’s obverse displays a figural tuna on the handle with “Tuna” engraved on the stem just below the fish. The lower part of the fish and the “Tuna” caption are resting on an engraved net-like background. The handle shape is notably asymmetrical. The outline of the fish appears to have been very carefully shaped, while features like the eye, the gills, the fins and the tail have been created by finely detailed engraving. The reverse is undecorated, save for the maker’s mark and “Sterling”. The maker’s mark is “incised”, or stamped onto the spoon, subsequent to its initial shaping. This is often a feature of earlier P&B spoons. Later P&B spoons commonly have “raised” marks, which were designed into the reverse stamp die used in making the spoons. Curiously the “Tuna” caption, a figural fish and a net along with the Type 1 Avalon scene embossed bowl are the very same elements found on Paye & Baker’s very popular “11002 Fish” spoon as it was modified with “Tuna” for sale at Catalina (Spoon of the Week 10/10/22).

It is very hard to know exactly what to make of this spoon, and the possibilities are almost endless. Obviously someone went to a lot of effort to create it. At present, the most likely scenario is that jeweler/silversmith took a regular stock Paye and Baker teaspoon, which already had a Type 1 embossed bowl, and extensively reshaped the handle into the shape of a fish. What type of stock spoon it may have been and whether this was done by someone at the Paye & Baker firm or by someone else is unknown. Determining its date is also problematic. P&B began operating in 1901, so its oldest possible date is 1901, but it could be almost anytime thereafter. That it could be relatively early is supported by the observation that the original stock spoon had an early style maker’s mark, but that is hardly conclusive. In sum, it remains a very enigmatic and most unusual Catalina souvenir teaspoon, and would fit well into a pattern of experimental and idiosyncratic souvenirs being produced in the earlier years of Catalina’s history of tourism