Provenance

In cleaning out the house we grew up in, my sister has run across all sorts of strange things. The other day, we found a box labeled "historic utensils," which contained half a dozen egg beaters (anybody want some vintage eggbeaters?), some random bits and bobs (including glass straws that are going straight into active use at my house), and a few pounds of silver-plated flatware.

As I'm polishing the flatware, I'm doing a little research on it, and I discover that I've got a dozen large spoons made by Victor Silver Company, which primarily (solely?) did flatware for hotel/boarding-house use. The pattern doesn't match anything I've found pictured so far, so I can't pinpoint a location or year beyond the 1920s-30s, but they came from Dad's parents' house, which suggests downstate New York.

In any other family, it would be safe to assume that these dozen spoons were bought or gifted, but in our family, that's less likely. Our grandmother was a known kleptomaniac. The one memory I have of her is from when my parents took her and us out to eat, and after the meal she opened up her gigantic handbag and began loading it up with anything that would fit, from salt shakers to salad plates, and even the vase and artificial flowers that adorned the table. My mother was embarrassed, Dad was used to it, and I was too young to understand, but that was the first and last time we went out with her.

So, looking at this silver, the most likely explanation for how it got into the hands of a working-class immigrant family is that Grandma pinched it. I'm not sure how a story like that would play on Antiques Roadshow, but I think I'll plead honest ignorance if/when I get to the point of selling them, and simply say I don't know where they came from before my Grandmother.

Kinda wish I knew, though.