HOME OF MARK TWAIN, HANNIBAL, MO.

[TWAIN, MARK] [Clemens, S. L.] HOME OF MARK TWAIN, HANNIBAL, MO. [Melrose Heights, Mass.: Shepard Manufacturing Co., 1906] Sterling silver spoon with raised relief in bowl with a portrait of Mark Twain, and his facsimile signature above his head. The front of the handle shows his boyhood home, the old mill, the "Huckleberry Finn Home," the cave entrance, and the word "Hannibal." The back of the handle shows the bridge, the library, the high school, and the lime kiln. The hallmark on this spoon is an "S" within a circle and the word "Sterling" but no other marks. The earliest pattern we have seen on a souvenir spoon in connection with Mark Twain, is an 1891 mass-produced pattern engraved in the bowl with an image of his boyhood home in Hannibal. At least two dozen similar souvenir spoons were produced with engravings of the boyhood home before Twain's death in 1910. This spoon, examples of which we have seen engraved in 1906, is the earliest to depict Twain himself, and is also the first of the many souvenir spoons designed and cast specifically as a Hannibal souvenir spoon, and by far the most attractive and elaborate. Sterling silver souvenir spoons were a popular memento at the turn-of-the-century; when Twain made his last visit to Hannibal in 1902, he was presented with an engraved silver spoon during the graduation ceremony at the high school (where he passed out diplomas). Not in Hagan, etc.