QUERY: GREAT SEAL OF MASSACHUSETTS ON A SPOON

I picked this up because it was weird and I’d never seen anything like it before. I wonder if this rings any bells with E-Sylum readers?

This appears to be a flattened silver spoon. It is 36.4 x 55.5 mm at the widest points, 0.7 mm thick at the base and 1.5 mm thick at the top, 16.9 grams. It has cut marks at the top where the handle to the spoon would have been removed, and it gives a fantastic clear-as-a-bell ring test, suggesting that it’s silver.

I’ve lived in Massachusetts my whole life so I recognized that it was something related to the state seal. I didn’t realize until I looked it up that the seal has changed several times over the years. The state has a good page about the history of the state seal. This is in fact the earliest version of the Massachusetts State Seal, last used in an official capacity in 1692.

Making things more interesting — or perhaps simply more confusing — this object seems to have actually been _used_. There is significant wear within the crude hole at the top of the piece, and wear on the face as well. The full text on the ribbon would have read COME OVER AND HELP VS. — you can see the AND most clearly, upside down in the low point in the middle of the ribbon.

Also, it seems that the spoon was already flattened when the seal design was struck onto it. I don’t see any distortion on the seal that would have come from flattening, or any damage beyond normal wear.

All told, this feels like something that was made intentionally, and has a story behind it. I wish I knew what!

So the questions to E-Sylum readers are twofold: (1) Do you know anything about this item in particular, and (2) in the spirit of weird stuff, what or there sorts of objects have you seen flattened and repurposed as intentional striking media?

For more information on the Great Seal of Massachusetts, see:
The History of the Arms and Great Seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (www.sec.state.ma.us/pre/presea/sealhis.htm)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web