Get the scoop: Spoon fanatic opens her own museum after collecting over 30,000 utensils
After driving over one million miles in the search for first-class cutlery, an Iowa resident has opened a museum dedicated to the largest collection of spoons in the world, featuring over 30,000 pieces of rare and antique tableware.
Camellia R. Pohl (USA), first started collecting spoons when her great-grandmother gave her an antique set of silverware before she left for US Army basic training.
“That gift started a scavenger hunt for the love of spoons,” she said to GWR – and after years of looking for more special finds across America and abroad, she has obtained an incredible total of 38,162 spoons – enough to open the Mississippi Spoon Gallery in Davenport, Iowa, as well as claim this unique Guinness World Records title!
If Camellia used one spoon per day, it would take over 104 years for her to use each piece of cutlery in her collection.
But just imagine if she met up with María José Fuster (Spain), who has the largest collection of egg cups in the world with 15,485 – it’d take them forever to get done with their breakfast!
In her application to GWR, she remarked that one of the reasons she was drawn to spoons was their use throughout history – adding that the Welsh have a tradition of carving spoons with different symbols out of one piece of wood, to give to a newlywed couple.
Spoons represent “the beginning of life”, she said, in the way that some children are given plastic or silver spoons at birth, and how cutlery is often one of the first things we buy when moving to a new home.
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Yet within Camellia’s collection, she has acquired pieces from all eras and parts of the world – in an effort to show off the lost art of silversmithing.
Some of her finest items include: a set of Queen Victoria spoons, hand-painted spoons with Noritake fine-China designs, and a set made of beautiful Franz Porcelain. She has many boxes from France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Korea, as well as over 100 Plique-a-jour spoons from artists from Austria, Norway, Egypt and Russia.
Other pieces are more historic – including primitive hand-carved spoons, pieces of painted ceramic from Europe, and Egyptian Mummy spoons more than a century old.
She also has a Chinese Dragon Spoon and an American Silversmith spoon, which dates back over 200 years.
And it doesn’t matter what kind of spoon it is, because Camellia will collect it – she has spoons made of shell and plastic, in the shape of children’s characters or ornate designs, and even acquired from airlines and restaurants.
In fact, one of the standout items in her museum is a "spoondelier" – a hanging chandelier made of 130 pieces of tableware!
So if you’re also a fan of silverware – or maybe you just want to get the scoop about the history of Camellia’s favourite utensil – be sure to check out the Mississippi Spoon Gallery in Davenport, Iowa.
And make sure to give Camellia a big congratulations – because she and her spoon collection are now Officially Amazing!