THE TICKTUM COLLECTION

This is very much a subsidiary area of the Collection, and the rather random nature of the collecting pattern and purchases shows this.

Most of the items have tended to be acquired via the business as examples in parcels which have been purchased purely to sell on. Indeed many items have been sold as duplicates of the ones retained. Only a handful have been acquired as individual planned purchases.

There are a myriad of patterns and the whole area is one of serious specialist collecting much like caddy spoons and the like. We don’t anticipate expanding this section at all, other than with items which appear in our general purchases which are either different enough or have a wider interest than examples we already have.

We are not aware that any of our spoons are of great rarity as regards designs. Some have some quite obscure makers which we haven’t come across on ordinary examples. The only ones I have not seen are the pair of ship backs with Onslow Ends. Ship designs are not particularly rare but combined with Onslow perhaps they are.

As a minor collecting field for us most of the examples are in very good condition as it is hardly worth keeping items that aren’t, in the standard designs. In terms of importance within the Collection the general comments here equally apply to Chapter VI and to a certain extent to Chapter VII, and they were often acquired in conjunction with the London Chapters when we were just starting out.

I hope specialist collectors in this field will bear with us, as we have used our own descriptions to describe the designs. It is probable that there is more formally wording to describe them which we are not aware of.