Featured Let's play a game, history revealed, and how to treat silver poorly

Thank you for your thoughtful questions and comments Bakersgma (as always). The seller shipped everything in the photos ( if I had been local, the price would have been $40 )

The two pickle forks are 1847 Remembrance (rogers) and Meriden silver plate co
One other spoon was WM Rogers IS

The smaller spoons are all Reed & Barton "Italian" silver plated

In terms of beating up the fool who scratched them up @evelyb30 ...as a protector of silver and an enthusiast of the collecting hobby.....I felt genuine anger when I turned over a few pieces and saw the damage done...but I'm thankful for folks like this in a strange way because their carelessness of the items led to me getting these pieces...does that even make sense?

 

Were the plated pieces "tested" as well?

 

congrats, you did well Mr Nate

makes perfect sense

 

Not a single one!!! So apparently this person knows how to distinguish silverplate from coin silver, but doesn't know how to identify coin silver (literally as easy as typing in the name on the back into google).

 

That's a relief on the lack of disfigurement. The 1880's - 90's is my favorite time period.

 

I found the face on the Reed & Barton Italian pattern to be really cool & creepy.

 

Dear Mr. Nate thank you so much for these educative post. they are all learning experiences.

 

Maybe you can lessen the damage by giving the scratches a good strong burnish with a hard burnisher?

 

I love the Italian pattern by R&B! I think I have a butter knife that’s a super rare variation of the pattern with a dog on it. I could be wrong that it’s apart of this pattern, my memory is poor. It’s a variation on one of their patterns. There’s some stuff that has a squirrel on it in this Italian pattern too. In lieu of the devilish face that is.

Edit: BTW cool find. I would have thought coin silver on some of these too. Depending on the mood I was in I would have made the gamble some of the time. You’re definitely right on the top many question thing. I questioned myself out of a nice sterling bowl for $10 once. Once I got there I was gonna toss the lady a little extra green for it but as many do the more I asked and acted interested the more she second guessed her price.

 

May I ask...is there a way of Remington the stains left by rubber bands and what actually causes the stains. Thanks

 

Dunno what chemical exactly but rubber (amongst other materials) off-gas a corrosive element, which, in the short term, the light staining effect may be possible to polish out ...however, with long term exposure, the metal will be etched or corroded ....and that may be difficult if not impossible to correct.

 

Hi,
It is the sulfur in the rubber bands which etch and with time "eat" into the silver. Everytime I see rubber bands or silverware wrapped in plastic wrap I want to scream. I wonder if you can wrap silver in wax paper and then rubberband the package??????
greg

 

Thank you both Appreciate your knowledge

 

C

At some point a lot of people were told to wrap their silver in Saran Wrap/plastic wrap. I see it a lot and literally had a lady tell me she was taught that was the best way to store it. I had someone wrap a really nice, fancy bowl I bought online in a trash bag for shipment. I often don’t open my packages for weeks and sometimes months if I trust the seller. Well this one I let sit for close to a month. I opened it and the bowl had brownish/gray stains all over it. I assume there was PVC in the bag. Coin flips from the 80s were famous for containing PVC and damaging lots of coins. Seller thought he was doing a good thing by protecting it from scratches. I haven’t tried to polish yet so not sure if the damage is permanent but it looks awful. I fear it may be there for good.

I got some silverware at a thrift store earlier in the year and totally forgot it was wrapped in rubber bands. Just discovered it the other day and they had already started staining everything they were touching! Whoops!

 

I tied some up to keep it together for shipment recently. Used ribbon, but it was stainless steel and NOT silver. Use cotton twine for that? Natural cotton with nothing in it but cotton is the safest thing I can think of.

 

Hi,
When I was selling I bought a large package of acid free blue paper like tissue paper. I used that on all silver items, wrapped in the blue paper and then encased in bubble wrap. I liked the blue since I could tell them apart from the white tissue paper I used for everything else.
greg

 

Rubber bands will mark silver badly. Acetone will remove pvc then you can polish stain.