Antique International Silver Company Frontenac Sterling Spoon and Fork - 5.575 ozt. Matching ornate floral patterns, one a holed spoon and the other a four-pronged fork, with inscriptions on the the handles: "1881-1906." Likely given as a gift to commemorate work or an organization between those two years. Makers mark on back along with the words "pat." and "sterling." 

Size: 2 1/2 x 8 3/4 in. 

#6022 . 

The International Silver Company was formed in Meriden, Connecticut in 1898 as a corporation banding together many existing silver companies in the immediate area and beyond, including nearby Wallingford and Middletown. The companies that were banded together to form the International Silver Company included Meriden Britannia Company, Meriden Silver Plate Co., Middletown Plate Company, C. Rogers & Brother, Simpson, Hall, Miller & Co., Simpson Nickel Company, Watrous Manufacturing Company, and the Wilcox Silver Plate Co. In Hartford Barbour Silver Company, Rogers Cutlery, and William Rogers Manufacturing Company joined as well. Within a month other Connecticut companies like Holmes & Edwards Silver Company in Bridgeport, Derby Silver Company in Derby, Norwich Cutlery in Norwich, and Rogers and Brothers and Rogers and Hamilton in Waterbury had also joined. A founding member of the company was Senator Charles Dwight Yale, nephew of merchant William Yale and member of the Yale family, who was instrumental in getting companies outside Connecticut to join as well, including Manhattan Silver Plate in Lyons, New York and Standard Silver Company, Ltd. in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Into the 20th Century many silver designs carried either the International Silver Company brand or listed them along with the original company as the designer and maker. In the 1920s they began to go by additional names, including Insilco Corporation and ISC. Starting in the late 1930s ISC sponsored the Silver Theater, a radio program in Hollywood featuring many stars of the era that was broadcast by CBS. In parallel, print advertisements in LIFE and other magazines starting in 1937 featured product endorsements for ISC, and they began making silverware specifically for many Hollywood film actresses including Anne Baxter, Joan Crawford, and Judy Garland. In 1949 the Silver Theater was turned into a television program, which further promoted their wares to new audiences. By the 1960s many of the original factories had been closed or consolidated, leaving the plant in Meriden the primary headquarters and hub of production. In 1979 International Silver, Ltd. was created as a trading company with buying centers for scrap precious metals in Tennessee, Texas, and Nevada, with refining and mining purchase operations in Arizona and California. They rode the Silver Boom for the next year, but in order to survive fiscally after a swift shift in fortunes in 1981 the Meriden plant was liquidated the following year. Their name continues to appear on new goods to this day, although they have ceased all of their own manufacturing ever since, and designs from throughout their history have been collected by many museums across the United States, including the Dallas Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and overseas at the British Museum in London.