First the engraver will make a sketch of the object on the spoon bowl either by drawing or
by a transfer process. Then after positioning himself next to a north facing window
(natural light is better than artificial light) he will very carefully use his graver tools to
carve thin lines in the metal. As the graver cuts into the metal, a thin sliver of silver is
removed. First the major lines of the picture are engraved and as it begins to take shape,
smaller and smaller lines are cut into the metal to fill in the detail. All of the little cuttings
are saved as they can be melted and reused in the future. The engraver must constantly
sharpen his tools to ensure that the lines are smooth. Considerable hand pressure must be
placed on the graver tool, but the engraver must ensure that the cut is not too deep which
would cause gouges or too shallow which would allow the tool to slip and scratch the
metal in unwanted ways. This is a much tougher task than it sounds and the concave shape
of a spoon bowl increases the problems. Sometimes the tool itself will break and this will
cause unsightly problems. If you examine some of the pictures, you can determine where
the engraver had "problems" and how he made other shapes and lines to disguise the
problem since it is almost impossible to "erase" a bad line. Normally an observer would be
unaware of these slight mishaps, but these pictures have been enlarged so they are
somewhat more obvious.
After the picture is completed, any lettering must be done. Many of the names and dates
which are engraved were done separately at the time of purchase. There were numerous
styles of lettering that were popular at this time in history, and the engraver had to be
familiar with all of them. Figures B1 through B5 show some of the more popular styles of
lettering. These range from basic block lettering through fancy script.
If you run your finger across an engraved bowl, you can feel the cuts in the metal, if the
bowl has not been polished many times, you can still feel the "jaggedness" of the cuts.
When reading books about silver, the author will sometimes say that the engraving is later
or of another time period. Some dealers believe that if they can feel the "jaggedness" then
the engraving is not as old. This is only partially true as the number of polishings or use is
what reduces this feel. If a three hundred year old piece were only polished once it would
still feel jagged whereas if a modern piece were polished many times it would feel
smoother. There were styles of engraving in various time periods and sometimes a dealer
will say that the style is from another time period. This is sometimes true as it was not
unusual for a piece of silver to be modified or engraved at a later date. Generally we do
not have this problem with souvenir spoons and the dates and initials are from the time of
purchase..
Some of the pictures were engraved at the factory and sometimes a local jeweler would
hire a local engraver to do the work. The factory usually tried to get the jeweler to order a
dozen images at the same time.
How long did it take to engrave a picture in the bowl of a spoon. The answer is
not simple. Obviously a more complex picture would take longer and the more skilled an
individual engraver is the faster he would be able to complete the work. If the engraver
were doing multiple copies of the same design, later versions would be completed faster
than the first versions. A consensus of opinion among the dealers who have discussed this
matter with me is that on average a simple picture would take between 3 and 4 hours to
engrave. More complex pictures might take 6 or more hours.
There are two pictures of engravings of the Minneapolis milling district. Fig C. (Note
both pieces have identical handles and were probably engraved by the same person. Close
observation will reveal a number of small differences including quality differences which
are probably related to fatigue or time pressures. It is unusual to find pieces that can be
identified as being from the same batch and engraver; (Paye & Baker). They are included
here so that you can see that as the engraver became familiar with a particular picture,
changes were made. Most of these changes are subtle, but careful examination of the two
pictures will reveal many minor differences.
Engraving is a highly skilled artistic activity. It takes about ten years of practice to reach
the "master" status. Most individual silversmiths did not do their own engraving, but
contracted it out to specialists. Paul Revere was one of the few silversmiths who also did
engraving on a professional basis. He is known to have engraved both silver items which
he created and he engraved copper plates for printing. The major silver manufacturers
often had a few skilled engravers in their service, but these “artistic type” people did not
fit well in an assembly line production. Management would often try various incentives to
make them work faster and thus be more profitable, but records from Gorham and Tiffany
indicate that such incentives usually did not work well. Most engraving is traditionally
anonymous since it was usually subcontracted, but as an incentive both Tiffany and
Gorham, for a time, allowed the engravers to mark their work . Some of the Gorham
spoons pictured here which were engraved at the factory are marked with an engraver
mark on the back of the bowl fig D (see square with line through it to left of flowers).
Silver, copper and steel engraving are basically the same process. Until the 1880's
the printing industry employed most of the engravers to make the plates for all the
pictures that were to be printed. This was a highly paid skill which was transferred from
generation to generation for hundreds of years. But in the mid 19th century the printing
industry began experimenting with a new technique called lithography (literally stone
printing). Using this technique the artist would literally draw the picture on a stone plate
which would then be acid etched and used in the printing press. The very expensive and
time consuming step of engraving a steel (or copper) plate would eventually be eliminated.
The net effect of lithography was that picture printing became much easier and cheaper
and thousands of highly paid engraving jobs were eliminated. The famous firm of Courier
and Ives was one of the American companies that led this technological revolution.
The silver industry was one of the few places a master artist-engraver could still
find work after the printing industry’s technological revolution no longer needed his
services. Engraving had been used to enhance the look of silver for centuries. Most of the
time silver objects were only engraved with names and or initials and dates because of the
difficulty and expense. In England some coat-of-arms engraving was done on larger more
valuable pieces of silver. Picture engraving has been known since the 1500's but it was
relatively expensive and therefore somewhat rare. We do find a few examples of picture
engraving on various smaller pieces of silver including caddy spoons and small boxes from
the first part of the 19th century but they are not overly plentiful. The American
commemorative spoon revival, however, was a godsend to these engravers as it required
extensive detailed work at relatively good wages (The wages were not as good as those
paid by the printing industry because there were more people applying for work than there
were open positions). The ready availability of skilled personnel created the opportunity to
have limited interest commemorative spoon bowl pictures hand engraved without
investing in the very expensive die creation process. If a jeweler only needed one or five or
ten commemorative pieces it was simply not cost effective to have a die made, thus the
engraved bowl was a natural substitute. Eventually the commemorative spoon revival ran
its course and the public was no longer willing to pay the price for high quality hand
engraving. Since there was virtually no further demand for engravers in any other industry,
most of those highly trained people were forced to seek other lines of work. Needless to
say, they did not pass on their skills to their children, and today we find no commercial
engravers who are capable of doing the quality of work shown in this book.
A few people still retain the skill to do hand lettering, (without using a jig) but I have
been unsuccessful in finding anyone who is capable of doing the picture type work. As a
side note, If you would like to see an example of excellent modern day engraving, examine
any denomination paper dollar in your wallet. American paper dollars are one of the very
few items that are still made from engraved plates. Even the Bureau of Engraving which
produces these plates is having an extremely difficult time finding capable engravers. They
have had to start their own training process because they have been unable to hire
knowledgeable master engraving personnel.
Fig. E. shows three pictures of the Masonic Hall in Chicago. All three are the same
building and the same viewing angle but most likely by different engravers. But examine
them carefully. They are different and those differences show the artistry which is involved
in engraving.
A variation on the engraving process is "bright cut engraving". To create this effect, the
engraver uses a specially shaped scorper to remove a sliver of metal. This scorper creates
tiny facets in the metal that shine brightly. You can see this effect in many of the pictures.
Notice how the windows of the buildings are brighter as if the lights were on. Sometimes
the outlines of the buildings are also done with bright cuts. Bright cutting is a more
difficult technique but it was quite popular at this point in history. Sometimes an engraver
will overuse the technique and some of the pictures show "excessive" bright cutting. A
skilled engraver is a true artist and you will see much variation depending upon each
individual's skills.
Chasing and engraving are similar skills and we occasionally find some chased
pictures in spoon bowls. In chasing, the metal is indented to form a design, whereas in
engraving a sliver of metal is removed. The effect is different, but one has to examine the
item very carefully under a magnifying glass to determine which process was used. In
many cases the two skills are combined. For example, in many of the pictures, you have
seen trees and other foliage. Those features are sometimes done by chasing, whereas the
main building is done by engraving.