Vintage 1960s-1970s Wm Rogers Presidents Series Thomas Jefferson Spoon ✨ Louisiana Purchase Bowl

What Was Jefferson's $15 Million Gamble? 🥄 Jefferson's $15 Million Gamble, Struck Into a Spoon

Size: 6" long

In the spring of 1803 two American diplomats in Paris were authorized to spend up to $10 million on New Orleans and the Floridas. They came home having agreed to pay $15 million for 828,000 square miles — the whole Louisiana Territory — and handed Thomas Jefferson a deal he privately thought the Constitution might not even allow. This Wm. Rogers Mfg. Co. presidential spoon carries that moment: Jefferson's portrait on the handle, and the map of the country he doubled pressed into the bowl under the year 1803.

🔍 What Is on the Spoon

• Bowl: the date 1803 at the top, a relief map of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase territory hatched, and LOUISIANA PURCHASE along the lower edge
• Handle front: a bust of Jefferson in an oval frame with laurel and a spray of ornament beneath
• Stem: THOMAS JEFFERSON pressed into the metal
• Back of handle: WM ROGERS MFG. CO. with a small second mark beside it
• Finish: gold-toned over the base metal

🇺🇸 The Presidential Series

Wm. Rogers made this spoon as one of a run of presidential spoons, all built the same way: the president's bust on the handle tip, his name down the stem, and a scene from his term in the bowl. Jefferson's scene is the Purchase. Kennedy's bowl shows the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Collectors document sets of 34 spoons ending with John F. Kennedy and sets of 36 ending with Richard M. Nixon, and dealers find Hoover in the same style — these presidential sets were produced in the 1960s and early 1970s, when a family could fill a spoon rack one president at a time.

🏭 The Company — Wm. Rogers of Hartford

In 1865 William Rogers went to Hartford, Connecticut, and formed the William Rogers Manufacturing Company with his son William Rogers Jr., along with Thomas Birch, William J. Pierce and William H. Watrous. The firm marked its wares "Wm. Rogers & Son" and "Wm. Rogers Mfg. Co." The Rogers name carried so much weight in American silverplate that several related and unrelated companies used it, and collectors still sort out "the Rogers confusion" by reading the exact mark — this one is WM ROGERS MFG. CO.

In 1898 a group of independent New England silversmiths joined to form the International Silver Company of Meriden, Connecticut, and Wm. Rogers Mfg. Co. became one of its brands. The presidential spoons were offered under that umbrella.

🗺️ The Louisiana Purchase — What the Bowl Remembers

Robert Livingston and James Monroe signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty in Paris on April 30, 1803. Napoleon had already decided to sell, to protect France's Caribbean holdings and pay for his wars in Europe, and when the whole territory was offered the Americans agreed on the spot. For $15 million the United States bought about 828,000 square miles west of the Mississippi.

Jefferson, a strict reader of the Constitution, wrote that "an amendment of the Constitution seems necessary for this." His cabinet argued the treaty power already covered it, and he let the deal go through. The purchase changed the shape of the nation — it doubled the country and opened the way west for the century that followed.

🎡 The Lore of the Souvenir Spoon — and the 1904 Fair

American souvenir spoons have their own origin story. M. W. Galt Bro. & Co. made the first one in the United States in 1889 — a George Washington spoon — and followed it with Martha Washington. Then Seth F. Low saw souvenir spoons in Germany, came home and designed the Salem Witch Spoon for his father's firm, Daniel Low & Co., trademarked January 13, 1891. Low ran ads in newspapers across the country, and the witch spoon is credited with starting a collecting craze that lasted about thirty years. A president in the handle and a moment in the bowl is the direct descendant of that first Washington spoon.

The Louisiana Purchase got its own party. From April 30 to December 1, 1904, St. Louis held the Louisiana Purchase Exposition to mark the centennial, and nearly 20 million visitors came. Sterling spoons were among the pricier souvenirs, and some showed Jefferson and Napoleon, the two men who made the deal. The fair is wrapped in legend: the story goes that the ice cream cone and iced tea were invented there. Food historians say both already existed — but the 1904 fair is where millions of Americans first met them, along with cotton candy, hot dogs and Dr Pepper.

🖼️ Display and Gift Ideas

• 🥄 Stand it in a spoon rack with other presidents, or on its own with the map facing out.
• 📚 Set it beside a book on Jefferson or Lewis and Clark.
• 🍎 A small gift for a history teacher, a Monticello visitor or a Louisiana or Missouri native.
• 🏛️ Add it to a presidential collection as the Jefferson entry.

❓ Questions People Ask

Who made this spoon?
The back is marked WM ROGERS MFG. CO., the Hartford silverplate brand founded in 1865 and part of International Silver from 1898.

What does the 1803 in the bowl mean?
It is the year of the Louisiana Purchase, the event shown on the map. It is not the year the spoon was made.

How many spoons are in the presidential set?
Sets ending with Kennedy have 34 spoons; later sets ending with Nixon have 36.

How much did the Louisiana Purchase cost?
$15 million, for about 828,000 square miles, under a treaty signed in Paris on April 30, 1803.

What was the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition?
The St. Louis World's Fair, held April 30 to December 1, 1904, to celebrate the Purchase centennial.