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Browse these categories under "Antique Grape Shears & Scissors"
 

Our selection of vintage and antique shears includes items crafted with different metals including grape shears in sterling silver and silver gilt.


Grape shears are a delicately detailed and flamboyant piece of antique silverware which are sure to amuse and charm any collector.


Andrew Campbell, using his 40 years’ experience within the antique industry, handpicks all grape scissors for sale.


AC Silver offer a 14-day return policy, and include a free shipping with all vintage and antique flatware.


antique shears

Grape shears and grape scissors are an instrument specifically designed for cutting grape stalks, and are smaller and designed especially for the purpose. Grape shears were invented in the 19th century, and the earliest examples were from the Regency period, although very few have survived and these early examples are extraordinarily rare now.


These shears or scissors are about 6 to 7 inches (15 to 18 cm) long. The handles are much longer than the blades, so that you can insert the blades deeply into a cluster of grapes. Most of the scissor ends of these pieces of antique silver have blunt tips, so that they won’t puncture the fruit.


The grape shears would sometimes be found as part of a set with a grapestand, and the earlier grape shears from the late Georgian period were more like scissors, with equally long blades and handles. These were often gold-gilt, demonstrating the high value that the grape shears had been imbued with as an item of cutlery, and as part of a dinner service. Later though, grape shears were usually made of sterling silver, as with most high-quality dinnerware, so as to avoid tarnishing and to stand the test of time.


After the 1850s, most of the shears produced included a flange which had been added to one of the blades, so that once the grapes had been cut, they could then be elegantly placed on to the diner’s plate while still holding the shears.


The decoration on the shears varied widely, at first the shears often displayed a grape and vine motif, however many grape shears were part of a much larger dining set, so they would be embellished with the same pattern that was on the other cutlery. Because so many pieces of various shapes and sizes had to incorporate the same design, these were often simpler than the decoration on single items.


Gape shears or grape scissors were commonly used during the dessert course of a formal dinner. Only after the grape stalks had been cut with the grape shears into single portions was it permissible to use your hands to eat the individual grapes.


The dining etiquette of the period encouraged the development of specific utensils for eating and serving particular foods such as grapes. Dining etiquette was an important part of the Victorian code of polite society.


The Manners and Tone of Good Society, first published in 1879, instructed on how to navigate through the array of new cutlery and serve ware that had come to fruition during the Victorian age. With the exception of some fruits and bread, touching food with your fingers was frowned upon. It was important to be able to recognise items such as asparagus tongs, marrow spoons and grape shears, and to know how to use them correctly.


The Manners and Tone of Good Society advised: ‘When eating grapes, the half-closed hand should be placed to the lips and the stones and skins adroitly allowed to fall into the fingers and quickly placed on the side of the plate, the back of the hand concealing the manoeuvre from view.’



Victorian Sterling Silver Gilt Grape Shears
Price: GBP £1,995.00
Antique Sterling Silver Gilt Grape Shears
Price: GBP £1,795.00
Sterling Silver Gilt Grape Shears - Antique George IV (1824)
Price: GBP £1,795.00
Sterling Silver Fruit Serving Set - Antique Victorian (1896)
Price: GBP £1,425.00
Composite Sterling Silver Grape Shears - Antique George IV
Price: GBP £1,425.00
Sterling Silver Grape Shears - Antique Victorian (1892)
Price: GBP £995.00
Sterling Silver Grape Shears - Antique George V
Price: GBP £995.00

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International Federation of Art and Antique Dealer Associations CINOA
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