Lenox Corporation is an American manufacturing company that sells tableware, giftware, and collectible products under the Lenox, Dansk, Reed & Barton, Gorham, and Oneida brands. For most of the 20th century, it was the most prestigious American maker of tableware, as well as making decorative pieces. Several china services were commissioned for the White House. By 2020, it was the last significant manufacturer of bone china in the United States, until the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of the company's only remaining American factory.
Sterling silver is an alloy composed by weight of 92.5% silver and 7.5% other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925.
Oneida Limited is an American manufacturer and seller of tableware and cutlery. Oneida is one of the world's largest designers and sellers of stainless steel and silverplated cutlery and tableware for the consumer and foodservice industries. It is also the largest supplier of dinnerware to the foodservice industry in North America. The company operates in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, marketing and distributing tabletop products, which include flatware, dinnerware, crystal stemware, glassware and kitchen tools and gadgets. The factory in upstate NY was sold to Liberty Tabletop, who is the sole manufacturer of US made flatware. The company originated in the late-nineteenth century in the Oneida Communnity in Oneida, New York.
A silversmith is a metalworker who crafts objects from silver. The terms silversmith and goldsmith are not exact synonyms, as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are largely the same but differed in that the end product may vary greatly.
F. B. Rogers Silver Co. was a silversmithing company founded in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts in 1883. It was acquired by Edmund W. Porter and L.B. West, who incorporated the company and moved manufacturing operations to Taunton, Massachusetts in 1886. For several years, the company was known as West Silver Company, and produced silver products for the William Rogers Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut.
Charles Sinclair Weeks, better known as Sinclair Weeks, served as United States Senator from Massachusetts (1944) and as United States Secretary of Commerce from 1953 until 1958, during President Eisenhower's administration.
Isaac Babbitt was an American inventor. In 1839, he invented a bearing made of a low-friction tin-based metal alloy, Babbitt metal, that is used extensively in engine bearings today.
The Gorham Manufacturing Company was one of the largest American manufacturers of sterling and silverplate and a foundry for bronze sculpture.
Household silver or silverware includes tableware, cutlery, and other household items made of sterling silver, silver gilt, Britannia silver, or Sheffield plate silver. Silver is sometimes bought in sets or combined to form sets, such as a set of silver candlesticks or a silver tea set.
Francis 1st was an American sterling silver tableware pattern, introduced in 1906 by the manufacturer, Reed & Barton, named after King Francis I of France. Production ended in 2019.
Lunt Silversmiths was an American manufacturer of fine sterling, silver-plate and stainless steel flatware, holloware, and giftware established in 1902.
A silver object that is to be sold commercially is, in most countries, stamped with one or more silver hallmarks indicating the purity of the silver, the mark of the manufacturer or silversmith, and other (optional) markings to indicate date of manufacture and additional information about the piece. In some countries, the testing of silver objects and marking of purity is controlled by a national assayer's office.
The Reed and Barton Complex is an historic industrial complex at West Brittania and Danforth Streets in Taunton, Massachusetts. It is the site of one of Taunton's first and largest industries, now known as Reed & Barton, a privately held silversmithing business that operated from 1824 to 2015. The company's success was instrumental in Taunton becoming known as the "Silver City". The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
Jens Harald Quistgaard was a Danish sculptor and designer, known principally for his work for the American company Dansk Designs, where he was chief designer from 1954 and for the following three decades.
Roden Brothers was a Canadian tableware design and manufacturing company. It was founded on June 1, 1891 in Toronto by Thomas and Frank Roden. In the 1910s the firm became known as Roden Bros. Ltd. and were later taken over by Henry Birks and Sons in 1953. Roden Bros Ltd.'s silver was supplied by the province of British Columbia and with it they produced a wide range of silver holloware and flatware in traditional English styles. The company offered a variety of flatware patterns that included Stratford, Queens, and Louis XV. Goldsmiths Stock Company were their exclusive selling agents from 1900 to 1922. Roden Bros Ltd.'s mark included the word Sterling, followed by 925, an R and a lion passant. In addition to silver hollowware and flatware, Roden Bros. Ltd. produced cut crystal and medals. In 1974 Roden Bros. Ltd. published the book, Rich Cut Glass with Clock House Publications in Peterborough, Ontario, which was a reprint of the 1917 edition published by Roden Bros., Toronto.
R. Wallace & Sons was formed in Wallingford, Connecticut, and incorporated in 1879. As of 1893, this company manufactured silver and plated ware and cutlery and had about 600 employees.
Lewis Edwin Jenks was a noted American silversmith, active in Boston.
The Newburyport Silver Company was an American silversmithing company, active from 1904 to 1914 in Keene, New Hampshire. It was founded in 1902 by 7 men in Newburyport, Massachusetts. In 1904 production moved to Keene and by 1908 the firm employed about 40 craftsmen and a dozen salesman. It produced sterling silver products, such as flatware and candlesticks, for New England and national markets, but ceased operation in 1915.
Poole Silver Company was an American silver manufacturing company, active in Taunton, Massachusetts from 1892-1971.
Anthony Rasch von Tauffkirchen was a German-American silversmith, active in Philadelphia (1804-1820) and New Orleans (1820-1858). According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, his works are credited with being "among the most sophisticated silver vessels produced in the United States in the early nineteenth century."
