(57) Pieces Stieff and S.Kirk & Son "Baltimore Rose" Sterling Silver Flatware - Approx. 61.395 ozt. A stunning array of knives, forks, and spoons in the beloved pattern, some antique, some more recent. Marked variously throughout. 

Largest Size: 1 x 9 in. 

Weight: 55.395 ozt. 

Approximate Weight (0.5 per silver handled item): 61.395 ozt. 

Charles Clinton Stieff co-founded the Florence Silver Company on December 2, 1892 in Baltimore, Maryland, and in 1904 Stieff bought out his partners, changing the name to the Stieff Company. The company sold high-quality products at value prices by manufacturing and retailing the silver themselves via stores and mail order, producing extensive catalogs starting in 1910 showing over 1,000 different sterling holloware, flatware, and novelty items, and they were particularly known for hand chasing and Repoussé work. In 1967 Stieff acquired the Schofield Company, and Stieff’s son Gideon headed the company until his death in 1970, with his three sons vying for control of the family business. Pewter manufacturing boomed in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming the company’s major business as sterling silver sales declined, and in 1979 the Stieff Company bought cross-town rival S. Kirk & Son, consolidating operations to create Kirk-Stieff, which the families eventually sold to Lenox in 1990. 

Samuel Kirk (1793-1872) apprenticed in silversmithing in Philadelphia and learned unique repoussé techniques from East India artisans during a European voyage. He established his successful independent practice in Baltimore in 1820, eventually bringing his sons into the business and renaming it S. Kirk & Son Inc. The firm initially used imported foreign coin silver due to US regulations, producing popular wares known colloquially as “Baltimore Silver.” After his death, the company transitioned to using sterling silver and changed hands several times, and in 1979 they were purchased by the Stieff Company, which renamed itself Kirk Stieff until it eventually went defunct in 1990, with all assets absorbed by Lenox and then sold off to Lifetime Brands in 2007. Today, Kirk’s original works are celebrated in major art museums as pinnacles of post-Revolutionary American silversmithing. 

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