Large Towle cutlery set (84 pieces) in Georgian pattern. Including 12 Wallace sterling handle & stainless blade knives,12 Watson sterling handle & stainless blade knives, 12 forks, 12 salad forks, 12 soup spoons, 24 teaspoons. In fitted wood box with soft liner. Marked on underside.

Box Size: 17 1/2 x 13 x 6 in.

Largest Knife: 7/8 x 8 3/4 in.

Weight: 73.245 ozt.

#1078 

Towle Silversmiths first began in the artisanal shop of William Moulton, the first silversmith in Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1690. Moulton’s family continued to operate the shop at its original location for multiple generations, and in 1857 apprentices Anthony Francis Towle and William P. Jones took control of the company and incorporated their work as Towle & Jones. In 1873 it became A.F. Towle & Son, and in 1882 Anthony established the Towle Manufacturing Co. while still owning A.F. Towle & Son. In 1890, the company adopted the trademark of a large script “T” enclosing a lion. Richard Dimes, an English silversmith who had immigrated to the U.S. in 1881, started Towle’s hollowware line. Dimes, who also worked for the Frank W. Smith Silver Co., would independently establish Richard Dimes Co. in Boston. By the 20th Century the company’s name was changed to Towle Silversmiths. Their most popular patterns of the past hundred years include “Marie Louise” (1939, becoming the official sterling silver pattern for U.S. embassies worldwide), “Contour” (1950, the first American organic modernist design and the only production-line American flatware included in the Museum of Modern Art’s Good Design exhibitions), and “Rose Solitaire” (1955). In 1990, Towle Silversmiths was acquired by the holding company Syratech Inc., which also owned Wallace Silversmiths and the International Silver Company. In 2006, Lifetime Brands Inc. purchased Syratech Inc., thereby acquiring all three brands.