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Day 171 – The Colorado State Capitol Spoon

I’m sure I’ve driven through Colorado at some point in my life on some family road trip, but I’ll get to officially check it off my list when I fly to Denver later today for work.

To commemorate my first official trip to The Centennial State, here’s an antique spoon showing the State Capitol Building in Denver. 

The maker’s mark is partially rubbed off from the back of the spoon (or was poorly stamped in the first place) but the last “B” in the Paye and Baker mark is clearly visible.


Since P&B didn’t open their business until 1901, this spoon can’t date back to when the Capitol building opened in 1894. I’d date it to sometime between 1901 and 1910.

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Day 170 – The Biltmore Spoon

There’s a reason the Biltmore House near Asheville, North Carolina is dubbed “America’s Largest Home®” (and yes, that is actually a registered trademark of the Biltmore company).


Constructed by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1896, the Biltmore House sits on the 10.86 square mile Biltmore Estate. It has 135,280 square feet of living area and because it is still owned by Vanserbilt’s descendants, that makes it the largest privately owned house in the United States.

Descendants of Vanderbilt include noted eye-roller and CNN news anchor, Anderson Cooper and star of TV’s Deadwood and Justified, Timothy Olyphant. 

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Day 169 – The Kennedy Space Center Spoon

On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space as a crew member aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on a mission which lasted 6 days, 2 hours, 23 minutes, 59 seconds.


Unlike the Kennedy Space Center Shovel, this souvenir of KSC is actually shaped like a spoon and was probably made around the time of Ride’s Challenger mission. The spoon is much, much smaller than the actual space shuttle. Science!