Wedding Cake Knife

I picked up a really beautiful and practical cake knife at the hospice thrift store a few weeks ago. It is stamped with "Sheffield England" on the blade but I don't know much more about it, like whether it's a vintage piece or not.


I think it would be really nice for a wedding cake-cutting but I'm planning to keep it in my kitchen for cakes or pies for ordinary occasions. It's in great shape and cost me 50 cents! I even like this knife better than the silver cake server that I purchased a while back.


While I like the detail on the handle, I noticed while photographing the piece outside that the blade is shiny like a mirror. That's the pear tree in my backyard that you see. :)

Vintage Silver Spoons

I was visiting my new favourite local thrift store the other day and came upon a bounty of silverplated spoons. I normally don't notice cutlery, preferring to focus on larger kitchen pieces and bigger utensils instead. However on this day, I overheard a lady inquiring about pricing, when someone pointed out how all cutlery was 10 cents a piece.


This was enough to pique my interest. Within the pile of junky forks, spoons and knives, I noticed a batch of spoons that were tinted with the silver hue. I dug around and found ten beautiful tarnished silverplated spoons and happily paid a dollar for my loot.

These two sugar spoons are my favourite. I just love the shape and design of the spoons!


I always enjoy a good mystery, so when I went home, I googled the markings on the back of each spoon and got some interesting information. One of the spoons had a picture of a young girl and the name "Marie" etched down the length of the spoon.


It turns out that Marie is from a set of five collectible spoons that were promotional items from the Palmolive Soap company in the 1930s! in 1934 in Ontario, Canada, five identical quintuplet girls were born and survived. They became a media sensation, and were exploited for commercial purposes. It is a sad Canadian story that has been well documented. Customers would send in "soap bands" as proof of purchase, and 10 cents in exchange for a commemorative spoon. It's funny that I paid the same price for the spoon some 75 years later!


My finds also included four spoons of the same pattern. From the markings and some helpful guides on the internet, I discovered that the spoons were produced by Wm. A. Rogers in 1936. The pattern is called Meadowbrook.


The spoons aren't worth all that much considering that they are silverplated, but I really enjoyed sleuthing to find out some history about the spoons. I plan to try some ways of removing the tarnish and seeing how the spoons turn out, just for fun.


I think the spoons would look great tied individually as a gift tag with a nice ribbon on top of a wrapped present. Is that a bit too strange?

Vintage Cake Server

While finishing up a grocery run the other day, I couldn't resist popping my head into the local thrift store. I had seen a silver-plated vintage cake server/knife previously but chose to leave it.

I thought it would make a beautiful accessory to someone's wedding cake table. A simple tiffany-blue ribbon tied at the handle would have been picture perfect! As you can tell, even though I walked away from it a couple of weeks ago, I had been thinking of it.


I was surprised to see it was still in the display case, neglected and partially obscured under a pile of old hockey cards. I scooped it up for $8 and admired it for a few days. I finally decided that it wasn't very practical for me and ended up selling it to a couple getting married in June. The bride-to-be tells me that they are going to have a cake at each table as a centrepiece, and now she needs to find a bunch of cake stands and accessories... Sounds like fun to me!