BACKGROUND ... What I know and also do not know ... (for sure)
The heritage of at least some of these knives began with "Rodd", this was an Australian company specialising in the craft of the silversmith. The company built up a long, distinguished reputation with particular emphasis on the production of finely crafted Silverware, Silver plate and hybrid Silver plate/Stainless Steel wares in later years. Not just cutlery either, in their early days, Rodd was very well known for some of the brooch designs they produced.
Over the years the company structure changed and their primary 'Grosvenor' period began in the 1960's with the new company structure of Mytton Rodd (Australia). By this time, Grosvenor was very well known for their Silverware 'canteens' (wooden cases with complete cutlery sets) which were often received as wedding presents by couples.
We do not usually offer items on other people's behalf, but an extended family member has acquired quite a bit of sterling Silver and plate. Knowing that our family runs a website where we are finding new homes for the masses of things we have collected over many many years, these extended family have asked if 'someone' may like to find new, appreciative homes for these items. Most are quite "ordinary", some a little strange and yet others are steeped in mystery - these knives are the latter ... obviously they are knives but even after considerable research, we can only take some "educated guesses" about where these came from.
If these knives already hold no interest for you, it may still be worthwhile to click HERE to take a gander at the other Grosvenor Silver plated flatware that we have had or are still available.
MYTTON RODD (Australia) - 8.5" Dinner Knives (6 in total)
Trade Name: GROSVENOR
Circa 1960's
Materials: Stainless Steel blade // Silver plated handle
There are two distinctly different types of knives here ... plain edged and the other type is a tooth (or serrated) edge - you can select which type of blade you prefer by using the checkbox on this page
Pattern: It would appear the design is called DELPHIC, not that most of the knives are very helpful in this regard! Only one knife has Grosvenor Delphic marked on the blade but ALL knives are of the identical pattern ... if it looks like a Delphic, smells like a Delphic and one says it is a Delphic - they are probably all Delphics!
All knives are of the same length (8.5"), design (Delphic) and weight (67g)
Three of these knives have plain blade edges and the remaining three have serrated blade edges - other than this blade difference, they are identical in all other ways except some of the engraving ... more about this below.
Thus far I have only mentioned the more mundane aspects of these knives (So what Russ? I hear you say ... these are just knives mate)
The major items of interest are
A) Four of the Stainless Steel blades have Grosvenor Stainless etched into them BUT this is not a laser cut engraving at all and almost looks as though it was etched by hand! Notice also the inclusion of the double quotation marks around the word Grosvenor on these knives. Two of the serrated knives have no engraving on the blade at all, although the design is identical to all other knives.
The one serrated edge knife remaining also has DELPHIC engraved next to GROSVENOR has additional information above the words STAINLESS ... FIRTH BREARLEY and refers to it being STAINLESS G
Firth Brearley were an English company who pioneered the production of Stainless Steel, and yet this knife is the same pattern as all the others.
Actually I did notice that the angle of the handle to the blade is slightly different when compared to the other five knives, I don't believe it has been damaged, it has just been made that way.
B) This is why I have referred to these knives as "Hotel Silver" (not sterling silverware but silver plate intended for commercial use) ... each knife has been clearly engraved (again, this looks to have been done by hand, not a machine) CHEQUERS
Now, it was this name engraved on the handles that got my attention and the search began (with mixed results) Just who were these "Chequers"?
Three possibilities were arrived at, and keep in mind I have no definitive proof regarding any of these theories ... we are talking evidence from around 65 years ago and not a lot of people talk about the knives they ate with!
Possibility 1: (most likely in our opinion)
Chequers was an extremely well known, glamorous nightclub and cabaret venue in Central Sydney and in fact it was voted by Variety magazine as one of the top ten nightclubs in the world! Often bringing in big name stars such as Sammy Davis Jr, Liza Minelli, Shirley Bassey to name just a few. It operated in its original form from the late 1950's until the late 1960's but then rebirthed as a live rock venue from the 1970's onwards.
Of significance to me was that this was not only a place of entertainment but apparently they had a large hospitality staff offering a wide range of meals to guests and performers alike. It is said that guests could well end up sitting at a table with the likes of Sammy Davis Jr, chatting over dinner - Wow!
Of course, in such a "classy" establishment you don't offer plastic or moulded wooden flatware! Hard wearing Stainless Steel along with the Silver plated handled knives would have been much more appropriate. We actually think it is quite likely that although these knives are all of the same design/pattern, they come from different sources and time periods as evidenced by the different markings on the blade areas (or the lack of)
Now, no hotel would be in the habit of giving away their utensils so we actually suspect these knives were "slipped into the handbag" and taken home as a momento of the night. These knives were never offered for retail sale and were exclusively supplied to "Chequers"
Possibility 2: (less likely in our opinion, although ...)
Perhaps the knives are of mixed heritage. Grosvenor trade name was also used in England (Sheffield) but in much earlier times, during the 1920's~1930's. This may explain why the three serrated knives differ in markings or the lack of (no GROSVENOR STAINLESS etched on two of them and the third having a reference to the Sheffield maker Firth & Brearley). Perhaps these were from the initial flatware supply to CHEQUERS?
Looking around for other "CHEQUERS" of note, particularly "higher class" hotels, all I found was a reference to Chequers Hotel in Newbury, Berkshire, England. Operating for over 200 years, National Trust Heritage listed and it fits the time scale of these knives (sort of) and is actually still in business but we seriously doubt these knives were used at this establishment because we are pretty sure at least three of them were made here in Australia, why ship them over to UK?
Possibility 3: (remote in our opinion, although you never know ...)
Perhaps, just perhaps there was a "well-to-do" family who used only table flatware with their family name engraved on it? It seems unlikely and Google AI comes up with blanks when asked about a prominent Australian family called Chequers, that's not to say that we have a lot of confidence in Google AI !!! - it often throws us "curved balls" as it is not really very intelligent, just a gigantic library of bits of information which it doesn't quite know how to sort out properly.
We think this third possibility is quite (well, actually VERY) remote ... it just seems so unlikely.
COSMETIC CONDITION:
After 65+ years in use at a commercial environment, or perhaps a household who handles their flatware very roughly!, there are obvious signs of usage over the years ...
NO bending to any of the blades
NO physical damage to the handles
NO significant scratching to the Stainless Steel blades ... Yes, there are scratches but none that we consider to be in the "OMG" category!
The handles all needed a good cleanup after what appears to be years of neglect (very dark tarnishing to the handles) These have been cleaned up using non-harmful chemicals such as the good ol' Baking Soda and Aluminium treatment and now all handles look "pretty good"
Pretty good means, Yes they are once again looking like "Oh you bright shiny thing, you" but you can easily see they have been used, A LOT! Quite a few small dings in the metalwork, after all this is a top layer of the soft Silver metal plated onto Nickel but no spotting or breakdown of the Silver plating.
Actually they don't look bad at all, the used appearance just adds to the "historical, nostalgic" look!
