Antique Pewter vanity mirror.

Hi I bought this really nice pewter vanity mirror today for 12 dollars. I only see two sets of markings on it. One marking says " warranted quadruple plate' and the other says "Pat apl'd for" it stands 9.5 inches by 5 inches at the center of the glass mirror. does anyone know anything about this piece. thank you.

 

Hi Christine!
Very pretty......not pewter tho....quadruple plate means plated silver (silverplate). Somewhere around the turn of the Century.....give or take.

 

Oh wow thank you so much for your response . The little tag said pewter but I had a feeling it was silver!

 

Silverplate was on several different metal bases.
White metal, britannia, were the common ones for the Art Nouveau time period. Which is what you have, an Art Nouveau hand mirror.

If you use a liquid silver polish it may clean up to a very pretty shine. Don't allow the polish to dry in the recessed areas as that becomes hard to remove. Avoid paste polish on this. You also want to be careful not to get water behind the mirror.

If the silver has worn off, the metal underneath will not shine - so it may look somewhat blotchy between the shine and dull metal.

Me personally, I always polish silver, worn or not.

Just wanted to add it is very nice.

 

Thank you so much for you response. I will pick up some polish and work on that tonight!! =] I actually cleaned it with brasso since a little part of me did think it was pewter but now I know that was a huge mistake luckily I didn't use too much. Yikes. Thanks !

 

I like Wright's liquid or Howard's liquid polish.

On occasion, I have saturated a soft cloth, then let it dry and used the cloth dry. Takes a little more elbow grease, but avoids the liquid.

Before doing anything wait and see if someone here has better suggestions.

 

"Quadruple plate" definitely means silver-plated. Common silverplate metals included pewter (sometimes known as Britannia metal), and nickel-silver (an alloy of tin, zinc and copper).

 

That looks like the tin zinc mix to which silverplate did not adhere well. Often found with no silver remaining. The gray base will never polish to shiny without removing the whole zinc oxide layer.

 

Is that something I should do to clean it up or will that damage it .

 

If it still has plating it can be polished. I would be very gentle to not remove the plating. If it does not polish fairly easily, it probably won't polish at all.