I've had a couple of Joan Rivers pieces that sold. First one I bought, I couldn't properly read the siggy until I got it home, and then figured I'd bought shopping channel dreck. I was surprised when it turned a nice profit. Second piece I was more confident about. But there are Joan Rivers pieces I've walked away from and glad I did. Apparently she was a Faberge collector with an emphasis on nephrite jade boxes. I wouldn't mind having her estate's auction catalog.
I think some of that is European furniture; in the US market it brings a lot less than American pieces from the same era.
What is really scary is that I have had some of those glass and porcelain items through my hands over the years and it would bring nowhere near what they are asking. The red and green glass goblets and plates are common and I pass them up at the fleas regularly.........and I'm looking at my Dresden coffee cups right now......
Bbbbutbut....don't forget these belonged to JOAN RIVERS!!! I'm tempted to buy a cheap piece of case furniture, put a CD player inside ready to play Joan doing a routine, and put a pressure switch under the rug so the routine plays when anyone walks by. Or a cheap chair and put a sign on it "Joan Rivers sat here." And plates, yeah, serve guests with 'em, an when they're finished tell 'em "Joan ate off that plate!" Yeah I can hardly wait!
Better yet (after guests have finished eating) say "Joan ate off that plate and we know for a fact it hasn't been washed since."
Hi, Now you have me thinking. My White House silver, I never thought about who had eaten with them. Usually I say things like (they knew how to use them). They were used since Grant through Truman. How many noteworthy people have eaten at the White House and used them. Of course they have been washed many many times since then. That is why I have them. A young girl who worked at the White House for many years in the kitchen requested a set of used White House silver when she retired. She was given a set and years later her family auctioned them off using Sotheby's and I purchased them. greg
Gregsglass, I am being serious when I say that I can almost guarantee there is/"could be" some way to find out who was present when any of those pieces of silver were used for a guest or guests. You know there just has to be a record going back through history of who was present at a breakfast or lunch or dinner when that silver was used. One place to start might be through the office of the "(chief?) Usher" at the White House or the "(head?) Butler" at the White House. I am serious about this.
Hi, Thanks for the advice but there was an order placed for 250 place settings, plus all the pieces that were replaced over the years before the set was replaced by new president. It would be impossible to say whom ate with what pieces. All I know is that the set has marks but what the numbering system was used might be id'd. I do not think that records have who ate what with each piece. It would be nice to discover that President Mckinley ate breakfast with one of my forks. greg
Gregsglass, what I meant and should have said was that I can (almost) guarantee that there are (still) records in the White House archives as to which china/silver/crystal was used for each dinner, luncheon (and possibly breakfast if the guest or guests were "important" enough) and what "guests" were present at that particular meal with any particular place setting. I didn't mean to imply that there was ever a list of whose saliva/dna had been on which individual silverware, plate, cup, bowl, and let's not forget "glass" (sorry I couldn't resist).
