Beschreibung:

A rare Charles II ascribed North Country, death's head, disc-end spoon with a ribbed rat-tail bowl, engraved on the disc with a death's head or skull and hatched engraving, inscribed on the front of the stem "LIVE TO DIE", the back of the disc engraved with the arms of Strickland of Boynton, Yorkshire and inscribed "DIE TO LIVE" down the back of the stem, flanked by hatched engraving, (traces of gilding) stamped with town mark, date letter and makers mark, by Thomas Mangy, York 1670 - 19.25cm long, 1.75oz. Literature: Gask. N, Old Silver Spoons of England , plate XXIV for details and an illustration of an almost identical spoon by another maker, dated York 1661. How, Silver Spoons and Pre-Elizabethan Hallmarks on English Plate , vol.I, chap.II, sec.XII, plate 5, pp.308 for an illustration of another almost identical spoon, by Thomas Mangy, York 1665, where How records, "The spoon here illustrated is one of a group which were made in York by Thomas Mangy and all of which bear on the front a death's head and the words "Live to Die" and on the back the words "Die to Live" and the arms of Strickland of Boynton, Yorkshire. These spoons were presumably made to special order and as they bear different date letters it would seem probable that they were given in the Strickland family as christening presents of momento more spoons. The form of these spoons is identical with the Scottish disc-end type shown in section II of chap.V, vol.II and Mangy must have used a Scottish spoon of earlier date as his model. Even the bowl of this example is of round Scottish form, though here the York town mark is struck in the bowl in the English fashion whereas in Scotland all the marks were invariably struck on the back of the stem." Jackson, History of English Plate , p.520 illustrates an example of the year 1670 where the bowl is of trefid form with the fully-developed rat-tail. In this latter case the York town mark is struck on the back of the stem as one would expect. See Illustration of front and back of spoon .