Souvenir spoon: USS Indiana
Toronto, Canada
1897
Maker
Roden Brothers Ltd (1891-1953)
Measurements
4-1/4 in x 1 in x 1/2 in
Materials
Gold-washed silver and enamel
Credit Line
Historic Odessa Foundation, The David Wilson Mansion, Inc.
Accession Number
1971.1112
Condition Notes
“U.S.S. INDIANA” and “IN DRY DOCK / HALIFAX.N.S." are in the bowl. “DIEU / ET MON / DROIT” (“God and my right”), and “HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE” (“shamed be he who thinks evil of it”) are on the handle.
Roden Brothers touchmarks--a lion passant, “R”, “925” and “STERLING”--are struck into the back of the handle near the bowl.
Provenance
Ex coll. Mrs. E. Tatnall (Mary Corbit) Warner
Comments
The USS Indiana, built in Philadelphia and commissioned in 1895, was in dry dock in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in August 1897 to install bilge keels to reduce rolling of the hull. The Halifax facility was one of the largest on the East Coast at that time. The Indiana was decommissioned in 1919.
This spoon bears British inscriptions and elements of the royal seal, notably the English lion and Scottish unicorn with a crown between them. Although the subject of the souvenir spoon is an American battleship, it was made by Roden Brothers of Toronto.
Of interest, the twist in the handle was made mechanically after the spoon had been die-struck and after the marks on the back of the handle had been struck. The word “STERLING” is distorted by the twisted metal.
