(68) Royal Danish Sterling Silver Pieces. Includes 27 spoons, 19 forks, 5 serving utensils, 11 butter knives, and 6 long knives with stainless steel blades. All marked on backs. 

Largest (Serving Fork): 2 3/4 x 9 in. 

Weight: 81.460 ozt. 

Weight with Knives (0.5 ozt per knife): 84.46 ozt. 

Cutlery (also referred to as silverware, flatware, or tableware) includes any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in Western culture. The major items of cutlery in Western culture are the knife, fork and spoon. These three implements first appeared together on tables in Britain in the Georgian era. In recent times, hybrid versions of cutlery have been made combining the functionality of different eating implements, including the spork (spoon / fork), spife (spoon / knife), and knork (knife / fork). The sporf or splayd combines all three. Sterling silver is the traditional material from which good quality cutlery is made. Chemical reactions between certain foods and the cutlery metal could cause unpleasant tastes, and silver had the advantage over other metals of being less chemically reactive. Gold is even less reactive than silver, but the use of gold cutlery was confined to the exceptionally wealthy, such as monarchs. Steel was always used for more utilitarian knives, and pewter was used for some cheaper items, especially spoons. From the nineteenth century, electroplated nickel silver (EPNS) was used as a cheaper substitute for sterling silver. In 1913 the British metallurgist Harry Brearley of Sheffield discovered stainless steel by chance, bringing affordable cutlery to the masses and making the region the silverware capital of the world for a time. Since the late 20th Century this metal has come to be the predominant one used in cutlery. More recent alternatives include melchior, a corrosion-resistant nickel and copper alloy which can also sometimes contain manganese and nickel-iron, and titanium, which has much lower thermal conductivity and weight.