fork

[chaaron]

how old is this fork?

 

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[duggap]

Someone who knows more will come along, but I have dug the two prong forks out of civilwar camps.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

That particular two-tine fork's very rudimentary iron construction, and its brass collar at the top of the applied flat wooden handle-plates, indicate it is from the 1700s to mid-1800s.

I should also mention, two-tine forks "smiliar" to yours continued to be manufactured through the later 1800s all the way up to the present. Therefore, very careful examination of the characteristics is highly important. For example, very-accurate Reproductions have been made for use at civil war re-enactor encampments.

Here's a photo of a crude iron two-time fork from the same time-period as yours, which was excavated from Montpelier, the plantation residence of US President James Madison (1809-1817).

The other photo shows a more finely constructed one, with a bone handle, reportedly from sometime in the mid-to-late-1800s.