 One day, while shopping in New York City, Wallace happened upon a piece of cutlery made of a nickel alloy called German silver that had been produced by Dixon and Sons of Sheffield, England.Impressed by the quality and strength of the piece, Wallace bought the formula from the German chemist Dr. Louis Feuchtwanger who had a small bar of that metal from Germany for the then unheard sum of $20 and went on to build these new nickel silver spoons.Later he found a man who had brought the recipe for making the metal.