Solid Silver Cutlery Leslie Durbin1954

42-Piece SILVER CANTEEN CUTLERY, London 1954 by Master Silversmith Leslie Gordon Durbin

A new canteen of cutlery of this quality would cost well in excess of £ 25,000.00 Today

PATTERN: Hand-Made (6 place settings)

STERLING SILVER HALLMARKS: London 1954 by Leslie Gordon Durbin.

WEIGHT:  1230 grams (39.6 troy ounces) + 12 knives with stainless steel blades.

We are pleased to be offering an exceedingly rare hand-wrought silver cutlery set by one of the most important post-war British master silversmiths – Leslie Durbin.

This is the first canteen of silver cutlery that we have encountered bearing the LGD maker’s mark of Durbin and it has all the high-quality features that you would expect from this master silversmith. The pieces have a lovely, elegant shape with a slightly tapering handle that terminates in a delicately engraved trim.

This stylish 1950’s service provides for seven pieces per 6 place settings.

All the pieces in this canteen were made by Leslie Durbin and bear appropriate Sterling silver hallmarks for London 1954 (the teaspoons are hallmarked 1955).

The service has six of all the standard dining pieces. The soup spoons and dessert spoons are of a remarkably similar style to each other with the soup spoons having a deeper bowl. With their 3-prongs, the style of the forks harks back to the early 18th century, before 4-prongs became the standard. The knives have silver handles with stainless steel blades.

Leslie Durbin was apprenticed and employed for many years to the most important English silversmith of the 20th century, Omar Ramsden. In the traditions of the arts & crafts movement, his work is entirely hand-made and often influenced by his master with the rattail on the reverse of the spoon bowls very much a feature of Ramsden cutlery. The style of this service is indicative of the immediate post-war years with a retention of Art Deco streamlining and simple, austerity-year's detailing. Silver and other luxury goods were heavily taxed during the 1950’s, so little survives making this service even more rare and desirable.

This 42-piece service consists of the following:

Total weight of weighable silver 1230 grams (39.6 troy ounces) plus 12 silver handled knives.

The service is in super condition throughout with no engravings. There is a slight line of pitting on some of the knife blades (shown in final photo).

This canteen is presented within four felt cutlery rolls with each piece having an individual slot.

A new canteen of cutlery of this quality would cost well in excess of £ 20,000.00