Antique Silver Plate Grape Scissors

Fabulous pair of antique silver plate grape scissors. 7”. The history of these scissors is so amusing. Victorians or other proper aristocrats and such would display large clusters of grapes as a centerpiece of their dessert buffet, often using a certain type of stand. The proper etiquette for handling food was that the guest would not touch the food with their fingers, hence a proper pair of grape shears could reach into the bunch, cut the stem and extract the cluster. A guide to etiquette published in 1879, called, The Manners and Tone of Good Society, instructed, "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."⁠