Star Pattern Juelep Strainers from 1890

 

Did I mention I was not done showing you all the wonderful things from this weekend? No? Well how remiss of me. These are two julep strainers I picked up in a pile that included a First Colony (1975) pie server, a Meadowbrook plate and some sort of stainless steel knife that I have now consigned to the garage. (sometimes in silver lots you get stainless I have a bag in the garage that I will eventually take to the thrift shop) 

These two beauties are what I really wanted. Though I do have a box of Meadowbrook (1936, Wm A Rogers A1 Plus) that is second only to my Queen Bess surplus. Simply because of the mass of it is the plate of any interest unless I could find a rich collector of Meadowbrook that wanted to take all of it off my hands. What I really wanted were the julep strainers. They are pretty rare as far as serving pieces go and there they were in perfect condition. The cap would only sell as a lot, he would not sell separately. This is unusual because I always try to bargain cheap by buying the lot and most sellers want to sell by the piece. This chap would not sell by the piece but I bargained with him until I got the whole lot for less than I was willing to buy the pieces for, so in a way it was win win for me as I paid less than what I had offered for the piece for the lot. 

Still, these are wonderful pieces and I was happy to slip them into my hunting bag and move on before the seller figured out that he had just underbid himself. This is the Star pattern made by 1847 Rogers Bros. They were only made in the Julep Strainer so if you have this pattern you have a julep strainer or something made by someone else. The date for the Star pattern is 1890. They are great little pieces and unfortunately for them I drink precious few juleps. I have julep cups and plenty of mint but it just does not seem to come up that often.