Topic: Engraved Georgian? kitchen Measure ????

[LEGSY]

Picked up this quality little piece of glass recently to my eyes it looks almost similar shaped
to some stirrup cups i have seen and some early glasses. The other thing it has some lovely
diamond point engraved wording on it one side is for measuring table spoonfulls and the other
tea spoonfulls. The base has a fair amount of edge wear and a polished scar although slightly
raised also. The glass has a nice lead tinge to it grey like. Wondering when it was made and what
it would have originally been used for in situ i just can't get my mind around it for some weird
reason?? Thanks

[chopin-liszt]

  Very curious.
Being of an age not too far from when these sorts of things were in almost daily use, I wonder why the person who engraved it used the rather slangy word "spoonfulls" rather than the older (and accurate) word "spoonsfull".

Do you think this might suggest it was made towards the end of the period these were made - the most recent, before the wrong word became about?

[Ekimp]

I wouldn’t have noticed the spelling Shouldn’t it also have just one “l” - spoonsful.

Searching Google books for “teaspoonfuls”, it comes up with several books etc from the 19th century that include that spelling. For example, it is in Mrs. Beeton's Dictionary of Every-day Cookery from 1865: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Mrs_Beeton_s_Dictionary_of_Every_day_Coo/hxQqAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Teaspoonful+dictionary&printsec=frontcover

Teaspoonfulls also has some results from a similar period, and also spoonfulls without the tea, I think maybe they just couldn’t spell or didn’t care.

It looks like the numbers have been wheel engraved and the words diamond etched which is curious too, I think normally they just wheel engrave the whole thing resulting in a blocky looking font. The diamond etching looks quite classy and nicely done, no idea when though.

It might help to measure the volume of their spoons as it looks like the unit size changed at some point (teaspoons on wiki). It could also be for apothecary use.

[LEGSY]

Thanks Sue & Ekimp I agree with the slightly slanted writing not being the norm and the ones
i have seen usually are just blocky words.
That it was made for an apothecary quite possibly and also maybe for a large home maybe
the writing might be because it was for a big house? posh..!!
Strangely made in such a way just for the sake of being nice sounds good to me

[chopin-liszt]

 
Mrs Beeton was only 17 and did not really know what she was doing. Much of her musing is very wrong.

She's personally responsible for the vile british habit of boiling vegetables for hours until they are past death and inedible.

[NevB]

I've just seen a measuring jug with similar engraving which also carried a GR/George V Crown Stamp Mark which was used from 1910 to around 1930, so perhaps yours isn't as old as it appears. I believe it's an apothecary measure.

[LEGSY]

Thank you Chopin-liszt i agree i blend my organic dried vegetables & grasses and mix with water and slurp
it is very good stuff indeed for keeping a good PH Level, I must admit though here in Wales i can still remember
using a privy at my house growing up it was horrible in winter when snow was falling. Agreed..

[Ekimp]

You know when the veg is cooked when it can be sucked through a straw

Nev, did the glass with the GR mark have both the diamond engraving and the wheel engraving? Thanks.

[NevB]

Yes Ekimp it had very similar engraving. A search for "glass apothecary measures" produces lots of examples.

[LEGSY]

 :)Thanks for replies...
I think it might just an attachment i have with this measure that is i find the writing so well
done that i can't remember seeing one like it before, Probably never know much more than
that. Funny how glass can be like that mysterious