J.H. Johnston & Co. Advertisement 1894

This is an advertisement for the J.H. Johnston & Company for a variety of silver novelties.  They have their offices in Union Square New York and show a wide variety of silver goods. This advertisement appears in The Century magazine in 1894.  My favourite piece here is the "Cleopatra" pen rest in the shape of a snake and I am guessing an asp. The advertisement also features an ink eraser.

Simpson, Hall, Miller & Company Almond Bowl 1894

This is an advertisement for an almond bowl from Simpson, Hall, Miller & Co. This advertisement appears in The Century magazine in 1894. What is interesting here besides this unusual Victorian piece of silverplate is the advertisement mentions the unnecessary nature of luxury goods.

It claims that fine china and silver make life better by their aesthetic qualities "Life Brightening". It also instructs the reader in the use of the almond bowl where the almonds are placed in the middle nut bowl and then distributed into the cups on the edge for the individual. To be honest, if I came across this piece for sale I would have had no idea what it was originally used for.

Orange Holder Advertisement from Pairpoint Manufacturing Co. 1894

This is an advertisement for a rather rare piece of silver the orange holder. This advertisement appears in Munsey's Magazine in 1894 and was bought by the Pairpoint Manufacturing Corporation. These pieces would later be called orange bowls. They sought to help the stodgy Victorians figure out the "proper" way to eat the newly widely available oranges.

Victorian Silverplate Flatware: Roman Pattern

This weekend I stopped by a garage sale while looking for another
sale. I picked up a large bag of flatware at .50 cents a piece. I
got to hand pick the pieces out of a suitcase full of patterns and
walked away with a bag of Victorian silverware.

Below are two pieces in the Roman pattern. The fork is from this
weekend the butter knife from an earlier haul. This pattern is from 1865.
Pieces can be marked Rogers & Brothers, Anchor Rogers, Derby Silver Plate, 1847 Rogers
and Rogers Smith & Co.

Goblet of Flowers

This weekend I also went to El Reno to the hamburger day celebration.
It was awesome. On the way home I stopped in Bethany Oklahoma and
found this goblet for under five dollars. It is in bad shape but I
think it will polish up nicely. The makers mark is long gone. Turning
it over reveals a hole where it used to be. This might account for how
inexpensive it was. I may never know unless I stumble across it in an
old catalogue. Still, most of the time its the beauty of the piece not
its value because of a particular maker. This is a nice little cup.

Showing Off a New Butter Dish

 

So I wanted to show off more from my Super Silver Saturday from last week. Besides the goblet and candlestick, I also picked up this butter dish for a steal. It is from the Meriden Britannia Company. It is also marked "1884" which is the manufacturers piece number not the year. 

Now before you get too excited there are a few things you should know. First, the plate even with tarnish is in excellent condition. The inside of the piece as well. As you can see it has a big G on the front and a flower finial. Plus the legs are stunning.  It almost looks alien in its design. It was not the prettiest butter dish I saw that day, but was tucked away on a high shelf forgotten, forlorn and on sale.  I am going to guess that it is late Victorian

(1880s - 1890s), but I have not located it (yet) in any of the Meriden Britannia Company catalogues.

Now for the bad part. Someone at sometime painted the outside silver. It just had little droplets of silver paint all over the place. But if you remember I like to think of silver collecting as a type of archeology. So someone ruined this piece, I think given time I can clean it up. If this piece of artwork can survive over one hundred years then I can finish the job someone started in paint removal. I have started reading about removing paint from silver. There is more information about this from jewelers on the internet than anyone else. It appears the main thing, (and this is not a surprise) is to avoid any paint remover with sulfur.  

This will be a lot of work but if I can salvage it, I can take a piece from a level I can afford and move it to a level I cannot. Even if I fail, I still have a butter dish that, guess what, can hold butter.   If I get the paint off the only remaining issues are a slightly bent knife holder and a tiny dent on the bottom. Which for its age should not detract from its value.