Eight (8) Vicksburg, Mississippi coin silver tablespoons, all with rounded fiddle handles monogrammed MK, including four (4) marked DOWNING & MOODY in rectangles with possible tiny arrowhead shape workman's mark below, and four (4) with incuse marks MOODY & KUNER. The Moody & Kuner spoons are additionally engraved "1854" on the backs of the handles. All 8 3/8"L, 12.03 oz troy total weight. Note: Silversmith D.B. Downing opened a shop in Vicksburg in 1838. He became partners with Daniel Moody in 1853, and Bavarian immigrant Max Kuner joined the firm as a workman around the same time. Downing died in 1854, and the name of the business became Moody and Kuner (making the monogram "MK" on these spoons particularly intriguing). An 1858 advertisement in the Daily Vicksburg Whig by Moody and Kuner stated "For the benefit of those not already informed, we would say that we employ the best workers and are prepared to do all kinds of manufacturing in our line at the shortest notice. We have some beautiful specimens of work, which we are always willing to show" (indicating the firm produced at least some of the wares it sold). Source: "Mississippi Silversmiths," the brief catalog accompanying a 1979 exhibit by the same name at the Mississippi Museum of Art, guest curated by L.A. Smith III. The Moody & Kuner mark is illustrated in the catalog, figure 10 (detail). Moody & Kuner is believed to have ceased operations by 1863.

CONDITION: Wear to tips of handles and bowls, particularly on the Moody & Kuner spoons; some scattered wear to monograms; some denting to bowls and a couple with some tiny spots of pitting. The "1854" inscriptions may have been added after the MK monograms.