This 6 person cutlery setting is in the Hampton Court pattern produced by Oneida Community Silversmiths.
Oneida has been associated with high quality cutlery since the mid 1800's, and was formed by the Oneida Community in New York.
Hampton Court was a pattern created in 1936 to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII and was originally named Coronation. As the new King abdicated, the pattern was renamed Hampton Court within the British Commonwealth but still retained its original name in the USA.
According to a vintage Oneida pamphlet, the design was inspired by the carvings of Grinling Gibbons (1628-1721) who was known as the 'King's Carver' during the reign of Charles II.
The design features motifs of flowers, fruit and reeds on the pierced medallion to the finials and delicate fluting along the length of each handle.
This particular set is in lovely condition with no wear through, pitting or corrosion to the high quality silver plate. There are some very light surface scratches to some pieces from storage and use. The knife blades are stainless steel and the dinner knives have a fine serration to the blade edge. Each piece of cutlery apart from the knives is branded Community. All Oneida Community marked cutlery is high quality with a double layer of silver over the parts that experience the most wear, that is the back of the bowls and the forks and the tips of the fork tines. This can be seen in some lights as a circular mark to the backs of the spoons. The knives have a mix of markings. We think one entree knife is a replacement as it has more fine scratches than the others and is marked Community in a different manner. The dinner knives are either stamped Community or have no marking.
This set has been well cared for and presents as near new. The back of the fork tines and the spoons show no wear.
The set is a complete 44 piece 6 person setting, comprising of 6 hollow handled dinner knives with finely serrated blades, 6 dinner forks, 6 hollow handled entree (or 'dessert') knives, 6 entree (or 'dessert') forks, 6 soup spoons, 6 dessert spoons, 6 teaspoons and 2 large serving spoons. We have added in a small cream ladle as well making a total of 45 pieces.
