Need Help with some Family Sterling - Tea/Coffee Service

Hey all! Cousin may be selling this. Not sure if originally Grandmother's or Great Aunts. Hartford Sterling Co., in business between 1900-1930 (per the 925 site).

Assuming the 1977 is the pattern number? Would you call it Deco? Total weight for the 4 pieces is approx. 54ozs. I couldn't find it on the web.

I know we don't do money here, but? hahaha. Sorry for the photos, they are from her phone.

 

Interesting shape. I don't think I've seen anything quite like this.

They were in business until at least 1934 (listed in the 1934 Jeweler's Index) but I'm not inclined to think this is Art Deco in the strictest sense. Hard to know what to call it. Replacements has a picture of 1972X that has the same lid shape. The cuts in the spouts make me think earlier, but I have no definitive reason why.

This is a case in which having a monogram might be useful.

 

Thank you! Trying to date it by who's it was, but we're not sure? Cousin doesn't remember it from childhood and her Mother will be 100 in Oct. Couldn't be her wedding set, it's older than that. Could have been her Mother's or Aunt Laura or Aunt Lola's. Both lived into the 70s.

 

...could have been Grandmother's..

 

I was reading that Hartford did mostly silverplate so might be hard to find another just like it.

 

I don't see anything deco about it

It strikes me as pagoda

I'm afraid the current market will be 50 cents a gram

 

That's true (about mostly silverplate,) but when they took over Tennant in 1901, that's when they picked up the sterling expertise and created the new company name, so in theory (if they started the numbers low and they just got higher as time went on) it could be before WWI.

 

Pagoda? Never heard that term. Terry Darling, do the math please? Scrap weight would be?

Cousin and her first husband owned a small hotel in Mexico, in the 80s. She still has all the sterling hollowware.....all bought at TANE in Mexico City. If you saw how much, your eyes would pop!

 

1600 grams minus the handle weight

 

Roughly around $1600.00-$1700.00
Cool beans

 

Thank you all, very much! I'll pass it along.

 

I've been so busy of late, not much time for here - but glad you're all here.

 

50c. a gram is about $800, not $1600.

Unless you badly need the money I'd hang on to it.

 

Isn't scrap price at just shy of $20.00 an oz.?

 

Spot price, early this morning, was $0.60 per gram.

 

The term 'Art Deco' didn't really come into common use until the mid 20th century, usually applied to the more geometric 1920s-30s modernist designs, but this set does most likely date to the late 1920s, looks like one of the Art Moderne designs that American silver manufacturers started producing after the 1925 Paris exposition. Some companies did it right, like Gorham, who pulled in designer Erik Magnussen from Denmark, some other firms more conservatively just simplified or streamlined traditional designs, as on this set, often giving a somewhat incongruous effect...

Hartford Sterling was out of business in 1930, though it was reformed for a few months, lasting until the new owner had the factory burned down in 1931.

~Cheryl

 

Not much time to poke around in my references, but here's a 1928 set, somewhat similar:

 

Great info, Cheryl! We all appreciate your resource files immensely!

I was wondering about "Moderne" but was hesitant to mention it without more backup.

I'm curious about one thing - if the company was out of business in 1931 because of the factory fire, why would they have still been listed in the 1934 Jeweler's Index?

For some reason the link I copied to the Chicago Silver site's copy of the 1934 JI wouldn't work, so I deleted it.

Let's try again. http://chicagosilver.com/s4marks3.htm

 

Eh, was probably just never removed from the previous editions, sometimes they asterisked or noted the out-of-business companies. Is kind of surprising, the arson trial was pretty well reported, would think someone might have noticed...

~Cheryl

 

If anyone is interested in Modernist silver, highly recommend Stern's 'Modernism in American Silver: 20th Century Design' (2005) - it's a great companion to Venable's 'Silver in America, 1840-1940: A Century of Spendor' (1995). They're two of my all-time favorite books on silver.

~Cheryl