Culver Military Academy
Culver Educational Foundation
Mess Hall Silver
Belows is the start of the mess hall silver I have - I was told by David that it was used in the Mess hall on the tables -
The pieces I have are the large serving bowl #5; sugar bowl #22 [I did have sugar bowl #28], 1 sugar & creamer set #16, and
one water or milk pitcher #26- what else there was I am not sure - these are the only pieces I have ever seen.
A 1965 graduate writes:
Yes, these sugar bowls were used in the Mess All as well as the Culver Inn. I am a 1965 graduate of the
Academy and remember using them. Yes, there were water pitchers, and they were not as sturdy or heavy as the cream and sugar.
They appeared to be made out of more like a tin metal [the one I have says it is 96 oz. and its rim is the same thickness of the sugar bowl
and creame, JEB].
Before 1960, the Mess Hall employed black waiters to serve the cadets their meals. Each waiter was responsible for a section of
tables and the silver pieces on the tables. The tables were numbered and the bottom of the silver pieces were stamped with the
corresponding table and section number. These pieces were periodically inventoried (don't know how often) and if any of them turned
up missing, the waiter's pay was docked. If too many showed up missing under a waiter's station, then he would be fired.
There may have been a large bowl - I don't remember them. I have a large bowl, what I call a soup tureen with ladle. That may be
what your talking about. I'll take pictures and send them to you along with my cream and sugar. I also have a sterling silver
sugar shell of the old Culver silver pattern that I show with my sugar bowl.
Engraved on the bottom is Culver Military Acadmey Gorham Silver soldered there is looks what to be an anchor with E - P on
each side as such
this was their mark for silver plate or electroplate. Electroplate – pure silver coats base metals when electrical currents pass
through a plating bath, creating the deposits.
and the term "Silver Soldered" appears on each. Solder – to attach bases, bowl bodies, fittings or handles by fusing metallic
surfaces together with a soldering iron. Thus Silver was used to solder the parts of the pieces together.
and these items are classified as "Hollowware" which Lenox (Gorham) descrides as being:any clayware, glass or metal pieces such as
cups, pitchers, bowls — generally serving items — as opposed to flatware.
The numbers of 013478 for the large bowl/tureen; 013477 for the pitcher; 013479 for the sugar; and 013480 for the creamer is the
Date Code – number code on the bottom of custom-ordered byt Gorham [now Lenox]. And earlier pieces bore a symbol as a part of thes "date
code" of which on all the peices I have when facing the bowl on the right looks to be a mushroom, which I have found to be the
date stamp and if I read the date chart of Gorham right it was manufactured in 1928.
The large bowl - one says soup tureen bears the numbers of 013478 ; besides the weight 150 oz.
which cacutlates out to be 9.375 pounds roughly; besides these numbers there is also and engraving of "5" which was not factory
made, the others are. It is 10 3/4" across, 4 3/4" deep and stands 5 1/2" high off the table these as as accurate as can be
stated. The inside shows it has been well used over the years.
The story is that the cadets loved to toss the pitchers around the dining hall - so the one I have is dinged up pretty well. It looks
as if it had a lid on it ar one time but unknown why it was removed but the 3 set hinge is not damaged nor bent that I can tell which to me indicates that the
lid was removed purposely. It stands 8 3/4" high at back by handle and there in measures 5 3/4" (not to lip)and is 8 1/2 inches deep inside. It bears
the Gorham stamp as you will see which is on all pieces - only the weight and #'s are different this says 96 oz. [ this is roughly
6 pounds], 013477 and bears the inscribed # of 26. I could 42-3 dents or dings; plus minor small dings and scratches; besides the
base being shoved into pitcher which is evidenced in the pictures [it should resemble the bas of the sugar and creamer I would think]
Yet from all this abuse of being tossed it still holds water!
The Creamer is 3 1/2" high; 3 1/8" deep inside, and 2 3/4" wide is i3 12 oz. and #013480
and bears an engraving number of "16" not by factory.
The sugar os 3" high, 5 1/3" wide and 2 1/2" deep. is is 16 oz. and assuming lid is included in that, #013479 [all three bear this #] and bears an engraving number of "22" not by factory - I have 2 more sugars.
This is the little information I have been able to gather on them thus far. When brand new, sparkling and shining
that they must of been a sight for sore eyes on all the tables in the mess hall. For now they are mine - and they have been
collecting dust and tarnish over the years sitting in the bottom of the china closet.
Today Gorham is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lenox, Inc.
About the company - The company moved into a new headquarters in Providence, RI in 1890. Gorham utilized a numbering system for
identifying its works and dates of production until 1898 at which point it was expanded to use letters as well in various prefex and
suffix forms- properly dating and identifying Gorham patterns requires a good reference book or the assistance of an expert.
Gorham assigned production numbers to hollowware from the product's earliest days in the 1850s. This numbering system, which was
continued until 1898, did not assign a discrete number to a design or implement. Nor can one tell the date of manufacture from a
production
number...
Tea Sets and some other standard hollowware items such as pitchers were assigned numbers in a decimal sequence, so the earliest
design of a tea set was assigned the number ten, the second twenty, and so forth...
Adoption for its products, on 1 May 1868, of the English sterling standard of .925% silver is probably the cause for the addition of
a date stamp: Gorham provided a certificate offering a money-back guarantee on the purity of its sterling ware. Pieces without a
date stamp predate the guarantee, so someone trying to turn in an undated tea service would have been refused an exchange.
By 1868 ... Production records were centralized, with costing records and photographs keyed to the production number
stamped on a piece.
The numbering system for sterling hollowware (as well as the costing records in ledger books, and file photographs pasted into albums)
remained the same until early 1898, at which time new procedures were introduced. In addition to the numbering system the letter 'A'
was added as a prefix to indicate sterling production hollowware related to dining...
This system using the 'A' prefix was continued until about 1930, when a new system of costing was introduced. After that year, and
certainly after 1932, letter prefixes were dropped and number-only production codes were reinstated.
In 1934...the date code was dropped, but was resumed again in 1941 for the possible reason that, as the Company had a repair policy,
without a date om a piece it was difficult to establish whether damage was the result of normal wear-- the customer thus bearing
charges for the work-- or should be treated as under warranty and repaired at no cost.
By this bit of information - I would say these pieces date 1898 or before - as there are no letters in the numbers. The only letters
are on either side of the anchor "E" and "P"; and probably stand for "electroplating" I assume. The numbers also by what information thus
found is a production number and possible can be traced. Assumption is that it bears no "date code". It could be that the "O" in the
number is not a "Zero" but the letter "O".
Gorham has been sold and reorganized several times prior to being
purchased by Lenox, Inc. in the late 1980's. When Gorham moved its
offices, headquarters and manufacturing facilities to new locations, the
Gorham Archives were donated by Textron, a former corporate owner, to
Brown University in Rhode Island. From their catalog desccription:
Gorham Company Records - Archival records (approximately 1,000 linear feet, dating from 1831 to 1986) of the company founded in 1831
by silversmith Jabez Gorham of Providence, Rhode Island. At various times the company was the largest manufacturer of silver products,
producer and distributor of ecclesiastical goods, and art bronze foundry in the United States. The collection features many thousands
of drawings and photographs of Gorham products, reflecting American taste from Victorian times to the present. It also contains
corporate, personnel, costing, sales, and advertising records, as well as blueprints, plaster casts, and copper printing plates.
Included also are the records of fourteen companies acquired by Gorham prior to being acquired itself--first by Textron Inc., then
by Dansk International. ...more information
Charles H. Carpenter, Jr. Gorham Silver 1831-1981. New York: Dodd, Mead
& Company, 1982. Reprinted in 1997 by Alan Wofsy Fine Arts with some
updated information.
Dorothy T. Rainwater. Encyclopedia of American Silver Manufacturers. 4th
edition, revised. West Chester, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1998.
But I doubt that any information on these pieces would be in these books - I am assuming this was a special design and
special commissioned work just for the Culver Military Academy - I might be wrong and it could be a common pattern sold
to others than just CMA.
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