Finding a flatware pattern.

When searching for flatware patterns, before I built up my library, I used a hodge-podge of silver websites to find information. None of them are "complete" and they vary greatly in usability and organization.

One such site is Silver Tableware. Like many sites it is a commercial venture, but it is also nice enough to make its information open to everyone. I think this helps to drive commerce in the silver trade. Basically, people find grandma's silver at a garage sale or in the attic and think that it is worth a fortune. Then they seek out pattern -usually through the makers mark- to try and find out what it is and what it is worth. In some cases I suspect that there are folks looking to expand their set but I think that the vast majority are people that will search for about ten minuted on the web to find what a piece is. Be that as it may, there are folks like myself that through this process have become slightly obsessed with pattern identification. This in turn helps to create a market for silver.


What I need to do is interview some silver dealers and hear their theories on this. Here are some questions that may have interesting answers.

1. What is the most common questions you receive about silver?
2. How do you think people "think" about silver today?
3. What drives the silver market?
4. What "theories" do people have about silver?
5. What is your most common type of customer?
6. What makes your "best" customer?
7. How do you think most people value (guess the worth of) the silver they posses?
8. What do you sell the most of?
9. What is the most common type of silver that people bring in?
10. What is the weirdest question you have received?

Looking for Silver Information?

One of the best resources on the web is the Association of Small Collectors of Antique Silver.


This site is filled with articles on almost everything silver related.

http://www.ascasonline.org/

They cover care, marks, history, submitted questions and pretty much everything else. I regularly turn to them when I am searching for information and some of their members run silver related sites that are institutions in their own right.

For example Giorgio B. in Venice Italy created a site to highlight his collection and it has blossomed into a massive resource that contains marks, a dictionary, pictures of his collection, and much more.

Even with all this information available for free I constantly come across pieces of silverplate sold as sterling, chrome and pewter sold as silver, and quadruple plate being "dipped" more times than "single" plate. On one of my favourite sources for silver this comes up with remarkable regularity. I suppose this should not be surprising. How can anyone know everything?