Stieff Sterling Silver 1954 Trophy Bowl - 33.145 ozt. Inscribed "Ocean City Light Tackle Club 1954," followed by an embossed marlin and then "Light Tackle Tournament Second Place - Won By" with no visible name afterwards. Marked on underside. 

Size: 11 x 6 1/2 in. 

Charles Clinton Stieff co-founded the Florence Silver Company on December 2, 1892 in Baltimore, Maryland. The original Florence name was quickly changed to the Baltimore Sterling Silver Manufacturing Company. In 1895 the name was shortened again to the Baltimore Sterling Silver Company, and in 1904 Stieff bought out his partners, finalizing the name change 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. The company was particularly known for its hand chasing and Repoussé work. Stieff passed the company’s leadership to his son Gideon in 1914, but continued to work until he died at his office desk in 1923. In 1924 a new state-of-the-art factory was completed, and a second floor was added to the booming factory in 1929, just before the stock market crash and the Great Depression. Despite the economic downturn, Stieff kept every one of the factory staff, resulting in some of the company’s finest, most skillful work completed during the 1930s. In 1967 Stieff acquired the Schofield Company, and 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. In 1979 The Stieff Company bought cross-town rival S. Kirk & Son, consolidating operations to create Kirk-Stieff, which the family eventually sold to Lenox in 1990.

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