Knife (Dinner knife)

Description

Some of the earliest British experiments with fused plate, or plating silver onto copper, were conducted to create knife handles for cutlers' blades. This knife has thick fused silver plating on the brass handle (haft). The hollow handle was stamped into two halves from the bolster to the pistol grip, then soldered longitudinally. It is not electroplated. It is difficult to date the origin of the knife, but the copper alloy (brass) substrate has a golden hue and includes a trace amount of nickel, supporting a hypothesis of prior to or during the early years of electroplating when white base metals became preferred. Firms in Sheffield and in Birmingham, England such as Hands & Jenkins, produced rolled and stamped brass hardware that included 0.10% to 0.25% nickel in the alloy beginning in the 1790s. The knife's pistol grip handle was fashionable throughout most of the 1700s and enjoyed limited production into the 1800s despite competition from a multitude of diverse electroplated flatware patterns. The blade shape likewise enjoyed long usage, and this one does not bear a retailer's mark.