A couple of days ago I was at a local charity shop I haven't been to for a while. It used to be one of my favorites but as with many in my area the prices have risen and they seem to get picked out pretty quick. I mostly look for what a lot of thrifters call "usefuls". Well...I guess that's not entirely true, I also look for unique treasures. My home is actually a museum of sorts with all types of unusual finds.
One of the things you come across quite often in second hand shops is antique silver plated flatware (forks, spoons, etc.) and hollowware ( cups, bowls, urns, etc.). There are markets for these things but the supply seems to be well above the demand. Mostly the people that go after stuff like this are looking for an all silver composition and a good amount of those purchases are just made for the scrap content.
I always find it a little depressing. These antiques of the past are usually so ornate and beautiful. The craftsmanship that went into them is far above the standards of this day and age and they are in a lot of cases still so relevant to current utilitarian needs. Most of my kitchen is something from the past and I really value the effort to bring them to light.
The unique find I'm highlighting in this post does not really fit into the utilitarian category for me with it's original intended purpose. I believe it to be a sugar bowl for a tea service. I love tea, but if I am to sweeten it a spot of honey is the route for me. With further thought though it's a a vessel that would definitely have a multitude of uses in my home.
I was walking by the section of the shop that had a few shelves of the antique silver plated ware and immediately noticed something quite out of the norm. What spoke to me first was it's unique patina. The patina is the discoloration of the metal that usually occurs from a chemical reaction of handling and use over time. This dark patina I was seeing was not in the norm. The next thing that caught my eye was the style of the handles. Upon closer inspection I noticed something I had never seen on a piece of antique silver plate....spiderwebs!
Due to the fact that I had never seen anything like this before, I immediately turned it over to see if there was a makers mark. It seemed more like a modern design and not one from decades ago. Most vessels if older will have a stamp from the company that manufactured them as well as a notation as to the metal content.
Sure enough the mark was there as well as the statement "quadruple" that would indicate that it was silver plate but had 4 times the coating that most other pieces would have. It seemed this indeed was from well in the past and it made this unique curiosity all the more intriguing. I paid the six dollars for it and took it home eager to investigate.
My first step was to look up the name of the maker. Sometimes just a google images search will bring up similar pieces and you can get more information this way. While there was a ton of information on this maker, I did not initially find any similar pieces. Apparently this company had several reincarnations with different names but the stamp that I had was their name up until around 1869. Then everything gets very confusing.
We are blessed in this day and age with technology and have a deluge of information on any given topic but unique treasures from the past may be rare and there may not be many others like them. I was however drawn to ebay through image feeds and found something by the same maker with almost identical decoration.
image credit...EBay
Then came a big whirlwind of confusion. The mark on this EBay piece was one of the later branch companies of the piece that I had found. After much more researching I found the same conundrum, all the similar pieces were from the next spout of this company.
It's a fractal maze trying to identify finds like this. Was it really worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars like some of the EBay and auction listings of similar pieces had indicated? Even if so, would I be able to sell it for that?
In reality I had bought this little sugar bowl because it caught my eye with the unique qualities that appealed to me. Of course I would sell it if it meant I would come up a bit, but until that fantasy was realized I had found something that aesthetically is right up my alley and would be content to find it a good utilitarian function in my home. Possibly I would just be keeping my salt in a vessel that could potentially pay my mortgage.
I'll keep up the hunt for more information. Maybe my local antique dealer can help with honing in on an answer.
What I take away from this though is that value is relative. I could maybe by chance come across a collector that would appreciate it more and dole out a chunk of change to covet it but for now I'm happy to have this little vessel that really was initially created to serve a purpose and not serve my wallet. If nothing else it will only add the menagerie of curiosities in my home that bring me joy.
I'll christen this dish for now as the "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" vessel and be grateful for the spiderwebs of its uniquity.