George III Sterling Silver Soup Spoon, London 1780

• Rat Tail - A spoon with a flattened handle, tapering from the narrow section at the bowl, and wider as the top of the handle, that when viewed from above is of a similiar shape to a rat's tail. Also known as the Hanoverian pattern, as its manufacture spanned the reigns of George I, II and III (part) of the House of Hanover dynasty. The rat tail pattern was the forerunner to the Old English pattern.
• Marrow Spoon - A spoon with a long handle and a narrow scoop shaped bowl, used to scoop and eat marrow from the hollow centre of roasted bones. Some marrow scoops are double ended with a different shaped bowl at each end.
• George Iii - George III (1738 - 1820) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1760 to 1820.
• Sterling Silver - Sterling silver is a mixture of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% of another metal, usually copper. Fine silver is 99.9% pure silver, and is relatively soft and the addition of the very small amount of copper gives the metal enough strength and hardness to be worked into jewellery, decorative and household objects.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• Smith III, George and William Fearn (London) - silver, maker or retailer 174
• spoons, silver
  • other, various types and periods 1,224
  • soup 187