New Teaspoon Advice Please
Discussion
Just to be clear I'm not talking about any sort of full on professional set up here, nothing to keep even the accomplished privateer stirring, I'm talking about a starter set up that the enthusiastic amateur can build in his spare time and get a thumbhold in the world of competitive spooning. Sure no incarnation of a Skovald will ever keep up with the Ruhr Valley offerings, or any other bespoke sports spoon, but how and where does the average Sunday-stirrer go and purchase such a machine? Less still prepare it for competitive stirring. And at what cost? Cost to both entrant and spoon - as I certainly don't want a bunch of lairy teenagers or a city boy spooners turning up and buying up the good stuff, driving up the prices and butchering them with amateur modifications, and gung ho stirring.
Get started on a simple, low cost stirring set up, modify it to the best of your ability and budget and move up to the bespoke stuff when you've earned your stripes.
Times have changed, unfortunately. I grew up on the Quixotic efforts of Lord Leighton and his bespoke stirrers, at the hands of the cavalier young stirrers of that era, taking on the big factory backed teams and winning. But that was the era when you could find a Devaldo 250 in a tea shop, and hire a master spooner to maintain it for less than you could hire a qualified electrician. You do know that Leighton's chief engineer Jack Banbridge was an ex-Fenster man, don't you?
Now a days we have works teams, astronomical budgets and big corporate sponsorship and professional stirrers who are using Dtax 100s to stir their milk at 120 SPM before they can even walk, it's a world that the enthusiastic amateur just can't break in to. No reason not to get out there and have a great time stirring with like minded enthusiasts, and with a Skovald based replica it needn't cost an arm and a leg.
Get started on a simple, low cost stirring set up, modify it to the best of your ability and budget and move up to the bespoke stuff when you've earned your stripes.
Times have changed, unfortunately. I grew up on the Quixotic efforts of Lord Leighton and his bespoke stirrers, at the hands of the cavalier young stirrers of that era, taking on the big factory backed teams and winning. But that was the era when you could find a Devaldo 250 in a tea shop, and hire a master spooner to maintain it for less than you could hire a qualified electrician. You do know that Leighton's chief engineer Jack Banbridge was an ex-Fenster man, don't you?
Now a days we have works teams, astronomical budgets and big corporate sponsorship and professional stirrers who are using Dtax 100s to stir their milk at 120 SPM before they can even walk, it's a world that the enthusiastic amateur just can't break in to. No reason not to get out there and have a great time stirring with like minded enthusiasts, and with a Skovald based replica it needn't cost an arm and a leg.
AJS- said:
You do know that Leighton's chief engineer Jack Banbridge was an ex-Fenster man, don't you?
I for one did not know that. This explains a lot. Sydney, 2009 in particular. I could not get my head around why that part of the bridge collapsed just as Smirnokian and his "Steady Stir" crew were crossing. Thanks for that. It all makes sense now.
Anyone familiar with pre-1930 East European spoons?
I've just picked up a nice little spoon advertised as a Ilic 430 for a little under three and a half - brave, I can hear you say - but it has a rather curious marking on the rear that I suspect could make it more interesting (and quite possibly worth far in excess of ten). I need to get it authenticated, but wondered what the initials BPSL meant to anyone, especially when accompanied by 'that' wild boar. There is also another subtle identifier. I never thought they produced anything similar to an Ilic, but the tool marks look good and performance seems to be consistent with it not being an Ilic.
Wishful thinking? It's not my area of expertise at all, so I may have made an almighty blunder - but sometimes you just have to go with your heart.
No photos until I can get it verified one way or the other I'm afraid, but of course happy for anyone to come and have a look.
I've just picked up a nice little spoon advertised as a Ilic 430 for a little under three and a half - brave, I can hear you say - but it has a rather curious marking on the rear that I suspect could make it more interesting (and quite possibly worth far in excess of ten). I need to get it authenticated, but wondered what the initials BPSL meant to anyone, especially when accompanied by 'that' wild boar. There is also another subtle identifier. I never thought they produced anything similar to an Ilic, but the tool marks look good and performance seems to be consistent with it not being an Ilic.
Wishful thinking? It's not my area of expertise at all, so I may have made an almighty blunder - but sometimes you just have to go with your heart.
No photos until I can get it verified one way or the other I'm afraid, but of course happy for anyone to come and have a look.
therealpigdog said:
Anyone familiar with pre-1930 East European spoons?
I've just picked up a nice little spoon advertised as a Ilic 430 for a little under three and a half - brave, I can hear you say - but it has a rather curious marking on the rear that I suspect could make it more interesting (and quite possibly worth far in excess of ten). I need to get it authenticated, but wondered what the initials BPSL meant to anyone, especially when accompanied by 'that' wild boar. There is also another subtle identifier. I never thought they produced anything similar to an Ilic, but the tool marks look good and performance seems to be consistent with it not being an Ilic.
Wishful thinking? It's not my area of expertise at all, so I may have made an almighty blunder - but sometimes you just have to go with your heart.
No photos until I can get it verified one way or the other I'm afraid, but of course happy for anyone to come and have a look.
I hope I'm incorrect, but I suspect this could be a cheap Indian knock-off - LinkI've just picked up a nice little spoon advertised as a Ilic 430 for a little under three and a half - brave, I can hear you say - but it has a rather curious marking on the rear that I suspect could make it more interesting (and quite possibly worth far in excess of ten). I need to get it authenticated, but wondered what the initials BPSL meant to anyone, especially when accompanied by 'that' wild boar. There is also another subtle identifier. I never thought they produced anything similar to an Ilic, but the tool marks look good and performance seems to be consistent with it not being an Ilic.
Wishful thinking? It's not my area of expertise at all, so I may have made an almighty blunder - but sometimes you just have to go with your heart.
No photos until I can get it verified one way or the other I'm afraid, but of course happy for anyone to come and have a look.
oilslick said:
I hope I'm incorrect, but I suspect this could be a cheap Indian knock-off - Link
Fortunately you are incorrect - definitely not from India, and certainly not a cheap knock-off. The workmanship is simply sublime. The question is whether it is just an Ilic that has been 'adapted' or (as I'm hoping) a rather exquisite piece that just happens to bear a resemblance to an Ilic.I just don't know enough about East-European spoons of that era to have any certaintly, and I fear that I may be a little too hopeful.
therealpigdog said:
Anyone familiar with pre-1930 East European spoons?
I've just picked up a nice little spoon advertised as a Ilic 430 for a little under three and a half - brave, I can hear you say - but it has a rather curious marking on the rear that I suspect could make it more interesting (and quite possibly worth far in excess of ten). I need to get it authenticated, but wondered what the initials BPSL meant to anyone, especially when accompanied by 'that' wild boar. There is also another subtle identifier. I never thought they produced anything similar to an Ilic, but the tool marks look good and performance seems to be consistent with it not being an Ilic.
Wishful thinking? It's not my area of expertise at all, so I may have made an almighty blunder - but sometimes you just have to go with your heart.
No photos until I can get it verified one way or the other I'm afraid, but of course happy for anyone to come and have a look.
Ah yes...from the old German speaking Bohemian area...BaurenProtestiernSchweineLieb.... it was the old political spoon, issued at part of a protest from the Farmers Union in 1922. In lonely areas, a certain amount of loneliness led farmers to engage in acts that were forbidden by the local burgermeisters..thus battle was joined. Quire rare actually.I've just picked up a nice little spoon advertised as a Ilic 430 for a little under three and a half - brave, I can hear you say - but it has a rather curious marking on the rear that I suspect could make it more interesting (and quite possibly worth far in excess of ten). I need to get it authenticated, but wondered what the initials BPSL meant to anyone, especially when accompanied by 'that' wild boar. There is also another subtle identifier. I never thought they produced anything similar to an Ilic, but the tool marks look good and performance seems to be consistent with it not being an Ilic.
Wishful thinking? It's not my area of expertise at all, so I may have made an almighty blunder - but sometimes you just have to go with your heart.
No photos until I can get it verified one way or the other I'm afraid, but of course happy for anyone to come and have a look.
RDMcG said:
Ah yes...from the old German speaking Bohemian area...BaurenProtestiernSchweineLieb.... it was the old political spoon, issued at part of a protest from the Farmers Union in 1922. In lonely areas, a certain amount of loneliness led farmers to engage in acts that were forbidden by the local burgermeisters..thus battle was joined. Quire rare actually.
That's what I was hoping - but to all intents and purposes it looks like an Ilic. Only the markings gave it away. I never knew that they had multiple designs because this certainly doesn't look like the BPSL that they had on display at SpoonFest last year.Do you have any more information?
therealpigdog said:
That's what I was hoping - but to all intents and purposes it looks like an Ilic. Only the markings gave it away. I never knew that they had multiple designs because this certainly doesn't look like the BPSL that they had on display at SpoonFest last year.
Do you have any more information?
They were virtually all destroyed by the Third Reich I believe,as they were considered depraved, though Christopher Isherwood did remove the unique "tusk" set in 1937. It is the only survivor. Individual spoons show up now and then, but very difficult to match them. A clue is in the shape of the B which indicated the individual artisan. The slightly backward -sloping B of Ulrich Fastnicht indicates the bast of them, but I have never seen the full six-spoon set, and the boarskin case has only been seen in photographs.Do you have any more information?
RDMcG said:
a certain amount of loneliness led farmers to engage in acts that were forbidden by the local burgermeisters.......
Practices that, until quite recently, were openly engaged in amongst consenting farmers in parts of the US and Kent.. Would you believe that Kleenex used to sponsor them? Amazing.Prepare to lose a couple of hours on this website
Spoon Stories : http://spoonplanet.com/spoonstories.html
Spoon Stories : http://spoonplanet.com/spoonstories.html
AJS- said:
Just to be clear I'm not talking about any sort of full on professional set up here, nothing to keep even the accomplished privateer stirring, I'm talking about a starter set up that the enthusiastic amateur can build in his spare time and get a thumbhold in the world of competitive spooning. Sure no incarnation of a Skovald will ever keep up with the Ruhr Valley offerings, or any other bespoke sports spoon, but how and where does the average Sunday-stirrer go and purchase such a machine? Less still prepare it for competitive stirring. And at what cost? Cost to both entrant and spoon - as I certainly don't want a bunch of lairy teenagers or a city boy spooners turning up and buying up the good stuff, driving up the prices and butchering them with amateur modifications, and gung ho stirring.
Get started on a simple, low cost stirring set up, modify it to the best of your ability and budget and move up to the bespoke stuff when you've earned your stripes.
Times have changed, unfortunately. I grew up on the Quixotic efforts of Lord Leighton and his bespoke stirrers, at the hands of the cavalier young stirrers of that era, taking on the big factory backed teams and winning. But that was the era when you could find a Devaldo 250 in a tea shop, and hire a master spooner to maintain it for less than you could hire a qualified electrician. You do know that Leighton's chief engineer Jack Banbridge was an ex-Fenster man, don't you?
Now a days we have works teams, astronomical budgets and big corporate sponsorship and professional stirrers who are using Dtax 100s to stir their milk at 120 SPM before they can even walk, it's a world that the enthusiastic amateur just can't break in to. No reason not to get out there and have a great time stirring with like minded enthusiasts, and with a Skovald based replica it needn't cost an arm and a leg.
I have a bit of a problem with some of the competitions. I know I've done OK at both Stirring and Scooping events, but I'm increasingly disinterested in the concentration on pure speed. I can certainly admire the determination and committment that gets someone like Grant Fulchester to attain his 180+SPM (and who can forget the Stir-Stir Champs at Helsinki - 212SPM counter-clockwise!) but there's far less of a concentration on technique than there ever used to be, and the use of ever-more aerodynamic spoon designs, Brownian Fluid Dynamic analysis and spoons made of all sorts of unobtainium. Now I hear that there's a 'blown bowl' planned for next year's Schelping und Kunzer SZ43, and they've hired Gary Barlow (yes, that one) as strategist, so they're obviously serious about the Worlds, despite the doppelschaft's exclusion forllowing the Paris Group's revision to the 2014 tech regs.Get started on a simple, low cost stirring set up, modify it to the best of your ability and budget and move up to the bespoke stuff when you've earned your stripes.
Times have changed, unfortunately. I grew up on the Quixotic efforts of Lord Leighton and his bespoke stirrers, at the hands of the cavalier young stirrers of that era, taking on the big factory backed teams and winning. But that was the era when you could find a Devaldo 250 in a tea shop, and hire a master spooner to maintain it for less than you could hire a qualified electrician. You do know that Leighton's chief engineer Jack Banbridge was an ex-Fenster man, don't you?
Now a days we have works teams, astronomical budgets and big corporate sponsorship and professional stirrers who are using Dtax 100s to stir their milk at 120 SPM before they can even walk, it's a world that the enthusiastic amateur just can't break in to. No reason not to get out there and have a great time stirring with like minded enthusiasts, and with a Skovald based replica it needn't cost an arm and a leg.
Essentially, it's far more of a team speed event than it ever was, and sometimes I wonder whether the stirrer is even needed other than to provide basic movement. Even then, is there any real artistry in just being fast?
I prefer technique - the joy of seeing an intricate bowl-twist mid-stroke, or watching a competitor pull a double Kespersky with milk.... these are the sorts of things that require really advanced skills but could be done using just about any spoon. Well, any that meet the Spec B minimum, I suppose, so not your average drawer-rotter - still less than £6k for a competitive pair which should see you OK for a couple of years, and even with some mods and the odd knock you're still looking at under £10k for a season, which I think is reasonable given the number of events.
Agree with that LBC. I think it's just that the modern stirring game is so far removed from what we as even keen amateurs are able to do. I remember as a boy watching some of the greats, William Gardner, Gilbert Drayton, Lord Leighton himself when I was very young, stirring like mad. Those old machines were real brutes, long before electronic stirring aids, plunge control and so forth. Thumbs full of backtwist, vortexes from the shoulders. You could really tell when a spoon was playing up, and it seemed like it was more down to the stirrer in the cup than to hours of painstaking research in clean rooms, and eeking out the last 0.001 of a SPM.
Eduardo Cuezzo is the one that really stands out for me. Flamboyant Chilean stirrer who came over to the UK to study but got into spoons in a big way. He could really pull something out of the bag. I remember him once having an early setback with a slipped thumb off one of the tricky but fast Italian Montezannis, and really pulling out all the stops to catch up with Ralph von Messer stirring the factory backed Krupps. In the final 30 seconds they must have traded places half a dozen times. And apparently Cuezzo used the Montezanni as his daily stirrer at home too! Different times.
Eduardo Cuezzo is the one that really stands out for me. Flamboyant Chilean stirrer who came over to the UK to study but got into spoons in a big way. He could really pull something out of the bag. I remember him once having an early setback with a slipped thumb off one of the tricky but fast Italian Montezannis, and really pulling out all the stops to catch up with Ralph von Messer stirring the factory backed Krupps. In the final 30 seconds they must have traded places half a dozen times. And apparently Cuezzo used the Montezanni as his daily stirrer at home too! Different times.
Badvok said:
Prepare to lose a couple of hours on this website
Spoon Stories : http://spoonplanet.com/spoonstories.html
That is a fabulous find. Spoon Stories : http://spoonplanet.com/spoonstories.html
AJS- said:
Ahhh India.
Often misrepresented as having a spoon industry as a colonial legacy but the reality is they have had a spoon industry since time immemorial. Alexander the Great even wrote of the spoons he found in the Punjab and that tradition continues to this day.
Very true, though I do have a great respect for the inlaid perfection of the Pondicherry spoonmasters from around 1900 or so....Often misrepresented as having a spoon industry as a colonial legacy but the reality is they have had a spoon industry since time immemorial. Alexander the Great even wrote of the spoons he found in the Punjab and that tradition continues to this day.
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