Carolean Puritan Spoon, 1665

Puritan spoons can be relatively light in weight or particularly heavy and this example is from the latter category and as a result has a feeling of very high quality. In addition to the weight, this spoon has many fine features, for example the original dot-prick engraved "ML" initials to the reverse of the plank-like stem, the excellent condition with lovely patina and the superb set of hallmarks including a particularly crisp and well detailed leopard's head bowl mark. This is a first class example of a highly desirable yet scarce form of spoon.

This fabulous Charles II silver spoon was made in the early years of the Restoration of the monarchy following the English Civil War and perhaps more disturbingly in the year of the Great Plague which was the final major epidemic of the bubonic plague to break out in the UK.