That vintage tableware from silver spoons to dainty china cups your grandparents had and then passed down to your parents or you may have value beyond sentimental worth.
David Allen, owner of David Allen Fine Arts, has been a business partner of The Antique Guild in Alexandria for more than 30 years. Here he explains what he looks for when assessing whether flatware and holloware have monetary worth.
First, let’s get the terminology correct. “Flatware would be your basic place settings and serving pieces, ladles, master butter knives, and all the exotic Victorian pieces that were made like toast forks, sardine forks, or bacon forks,” says Allen.
Holloware would include tea sets, vegetable dishes, entrée dishes, and gravy boats.
“The main factors that drive the price of tableware are the desirability or demand for a pattern. The silver content is a little more critical these days as the value of the actual silver [has gone up] as opposed to the demand for the item. It’s worth more for the weight of the item than the desirability of the item,” he says.
This might mean that you’ll get a higher price for sterling flatware because, if it’s scrapped and melted down, the dealer can get a higher price for the silver he resells.
Allen says that pattern is key. “Mostly Tiffany has value, sometimes some of the more obscure patterns are better than the more popular patterns because they were made a lot, and more of that winds up being melted because more comes on the market at once,” he says.
“There are also shifts in the market as more of the type enter the market.” So, if the silver pattern is obscure, guard it with your life. To get a better understanding of silver and its worth, Allen recommends reading Silver in America, 1840–1940: A Century of Splendor by Charles L. Venable.
Because he has experience handling pieces from the 1500s to the present, Allen can tell whether an item is silver. When assessing your own silver, he says, “Look for silver hallmarks. They can generally be found on handles of the piece or on the base. One of the key indicators would be numbers 10 through 13, which are Continental or German, and they refer to 10 to 13 loff, and a loff is an ounce of silver.” Ten would probably be close to 0.750 silver, whereas 13 would be 0.999.
Generally, sterling will be marked as sterling, or have the numbers. If it has a lion with a paw off the ground, it’s silver that’s universally accepted, he says.
How to Care for Your Tableware
Allen recommends using a silver chest and tarnish strips to care for your tableware.
“The best thing is to use your silver regularly so that it doesn’t have a chance to tarnish,” he says. “The attractive patina will go away if you put it in a dishwasher. It should be handwashed without steel wool. Never put knives in the dishwasher because the handles in many cases are filled with pitch, which is a turpentine product when it heats up the blade will come out.”
He also says to use silver polish by Gorham or Wright’s, rather than dish detergent. Keep the polishing to a minimum with earlier silverware. If you leave a bit of the polish on it, it takes longer for the silver to tarnish.
“One of the other things that has value is provenance. If it has a crest or monogram that can be identified or has been in the same family for a number of years, that increases the value. I recently bought three pieces from Robert E. Lee’s silver service and it’s worth 30 times what another item of the same type would be because it had the Lee family crest on it.”
What China Collectors Buy and Don’t Buy
When it comes to china, Allen buys mostly Herend or Tiffany. “I’d buy Wedgewood depending on the pattern. Floral limoges are a tough sale. Stuff that your grandmother had in the 1880s to the 1920s, there’s a glut of it in the market and no one wants it. Anything earlier, people are collecting piece by piece.”
Size matters, he says. “There’s more interest in tiny things, blue and white colors, people still collect Flow Blue and Meissen (Blue) Onion. You can find it now at about a third of what I sold it for 20 years ago,” he says.
There is also interest in unchipped Royal Copenhagen for Danika china or things that have covers “because they tend to chip or break, and they go missing so they’re a little harder to find.”
Feature image, stock.adobe.com
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