Featured It's on the way, so I can talk about it

Good evening to my fellow silver enthusiasts. The time has come once again, for the magic to happen, and a great item to be found. This was an online score. As is often the case, the details of the listing didn't quite match up to what a pair of trained eyes observed. I happened across this listing, the title mentioned that it's silver plated (of course we know that doesn't stop me from looking and maybe buying):









And so I inquired, in my usual way asking to see if I could manage to get a photo of the bottom. The seller was kind to send me this one photo:



So I feel confident that I know purity and origin, but if someone else can confirm that would be great. And on the off chance someone can translate the maker, that would be super cool...This one went out the door for $31 total and I can't wait to get it in my hands.

 

score

 

Iran, .875 silver purity.

 

Correct orientation of the mark from the National Museums
Scotland. They don’t know the maker either.

https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/world-cultures/the-kronfol-collection/

 

Thank you for sharing that link. I looked at the page briefly earlier today, but didn't move slow enough to realize my mark was sitting right there. That page has great explanations of the embossing vs engraving.

 

This one is incredible. Really well done! You stole it for sure. Was the owner Iranian do you know? Just curious how they came to own it, I assume it must have been an heirloom.

 

Anund, you never cease to amaze. Such a valued member here.

Wonderful find, Mr. Nate.

 

An interesting question. And I wish I could ask the seller, but I'm always cautious after the deal is done to interact anymore. I would definitely prefer that the seller feels good about the transaction as I'm sure they do right now. So if I start asking questions about where they got it from I may unintentionally expose more details than I want to. To that end, the owners last name appears to be of German origin, so unless I asked very directly, there doesn't appear to be a family connection. The seller only has a few listings, so doesn't appear to be offloading an estate which could indicate a family member passing away. I always want so bad to learn the background of where an item came from, but often I have to accept the mystery of these items...Bouncing around in my brain is often the question "is there more in this persons basement"?!?

 

Excellent find! SCORE!

 

great score Mr Nate

lol, so true

 

yes...but at $31.....for an .875 silver cocktail shaker....or whatever it is...if you get all inquisitive & googly eyed......he may catch on real fast.....and then you've screwed the pooch !

 

When it arrives, maybe couldn't hurt to email and generically say, "I just love this, thank you. Keep me in mind if you are selling anything else."

 

anything else ...like this, ... maybe be better..
but yes.....the smooth thank you keeps the door open !

 

This is a brilliant idea and I will definitely do it.

 

Quick update everyone. It arrived today!!!!! No damage during shipping and the seller carefully packed it for me. It felt like unwrapping a christmas gift. I'm hoping to get some photos tomorrow, but here's some basic specs: approximately 8.5" tall, absolutely beautiful, and a surprising 452 grams. I'm thoroughly enjoying the polishing.

 

For $31, one has to wonder if it was looted somewhere. I hate to rain on anyone's happy parade, but this is such a fabulous item...that price makes it seem like it was too 'hot' to keep.

 

Good Morning Bev (and everyone else),

I'd like to address your remarks, and to do it as succinctly as possible. I'll start by saying what you are suggesting is theoretically possible, but I absolutely disagree with the suggestion you are making. A few thoughts (my opinions alone):

Your suggestion, if I understand it correctly is something like "the price of this item makes me think it must be stolen, the thief just needs to get it off their hands quickly." Please let me know if I'm not interpreting your remarks correctly, but assuming that I am, here's some additional information;

1. I take great care (or as great of care as I can) to interact with reputable people. I'm never interested in acquiring an item through theft. I probably take greater care than most; one of my common practices on the site I'm purchasing on is to look at the individuals profile, see when it was created (that's important), what type of person I consider them to be, and look at the other items they are selling. I have a pretty good sense of reputable vs non-reputable. For this specific seller, they have very normal photos, they've been on this site for 5 years, and the other items they are listing are the epitome of pedestrian (dishes and houseplants).

2. A criminal wouldn't operate in the way you are suggesting: let's consider this hypothetical, although I absolutely refuse to live my life based on hypothetical's: This person (a female in her 40's) is actually secretly breaking into houses and stealing stuff. So let's pretend this is a stolen item....The average home robbery is over from start to finish in 8-12 minutes. So that means that this thief only has about 10 minutes to ransack a house, find the most valuable items, and get out. They've got a backpack at most to store these valuables. So our mid 40's female thief ransacks the house for jewelry, cash, and this beautiful silver item...

3. So what's the problem with this argument? If she stole it, she did so because she thinks it's REALLY valuable. Because our thief can only carry so many items out of the house, they have to choose wisely (that's why thieves love jewelry, coin collections, cash etc: they are all small and easy to hold). But the real important piece is they think it's valuable. So why would this thief turn around and list the item as silver plated? And why would they list the item for $15? (I paid $31 total because I had it shipped to me). And why would a criminal use a well established profile to list something they stole (this site would make it very easy to track down the thief, and thieves really like anonymity). But let's go one step further, because I paid them on paypal, which means now there's even more evidence to directly connect them to the stolen property. There's probably another 10-20 points I could make about why it's highly unlikely this person is engaging in criminal activity, but I hope my points illustrate a few of them. Oh, and of course when they shipped the item, they gave me their real return address, again leaving an amazing amount of potentially incriminating evidence if we assume this item was stolen.

4. I hope that some of my points above convince you that this isn't a stolen item, as I have no doubt that it isn't stolen. But if I don't convince you, I hope that I've provided some thoughtful discussion to our less experienced members. I consider it a very myopic view that because something valuable is priced so cheaply, it must be stolen. If you take time to go back to my previous posts, you will see a clear and resounding explanation on why sometimes valuable items get priced cheaply: because the person doesn't know they are silver. That's why I got this item for the price I paid, because the seller believed the item was silver plated. They didn't even bother to post a photo of the base markings because they didn't consider whatever those squiggly lines were on the bottom to be relevant.

5. I'll close my remarks by saying anyone who is purchasing items is very correct to be careful & cautious. There's plenty of scam artists looking to rip buyers off and there's certainly thieves who are selling items online. When you look at the totality of circumstance, I believe these individuals are mostly easy to spot, and in the case of the purchase I just made, I can't find a single scrap of evidence to suggest this item was stolen. It just doesn't add up to me.

 

Excellent find, @MrNate !

 

Here it is!

 

Hi Nate,
It is gorgeous!!!!! I also love the polishing job you do.
greg