Featured Finds Thread

Amazing deal, Lynnie! I want to go thrifting where you are! Around here they'd price a perfectly ordinary silverplate tray for 5X as much as you paid.

 

Great find.....I say go back and raid their stock !!!!

 

Wow! Congratulations!

 

] This isn't technically a "find" - I got it from a friend who's downsizing. The maker's mark says (I think) BOLIVIANO. All the information I can find on the web refers to boliviano as a coin from Bolivia. What am I missing here?

 

Yer missing plata or 925 but Boliviano could possibly be the same usage as 'coin' here

 

nice friend !

 

May I boast a rather lovely find...



These were advertised as "Royal Albert plates". I knew immediately that they weren't from that manufacturer but it was only when I saw the back stamp that I started to get a bit excited. Intrigued, I bought them for, as we English people of a certain age say, "a song".

I consulted a local auction house expert, who also happens to be one of the valuers on the UK's BBC television programme "Antiques Roadshow". He confirmed what I thought... they ARE Meissen.

He told me that they're mid to late 1800s, outside decorated, probably at Dresden.

The plates very much resemble the Watteau based pattern on the Three Emperors Service seen on the Meissen website, produced to mark a peace meeting between Austro-Hungarian monarch Franz Joseph I, the German Kaiser Wilhelm I and the Russian czar Alexander II, and presented to the King of Saxony. These too would almost certainly have been outside decorated due to the sheer number of pieces to be worked on.

My plates, while confirmed to be Meissen and hand painted, sadly have no provenance so can't be described as from this service although it's got to be a strong possibility. Nonetheless they're a remarkable find and have been valued by the BBC Antiques Roadshow expert to be worth an auction price of between £400 and £600 UK sterling.

They're very carefully packed away and I don't know quite what to do with them. I can't see them coming out on display here, at least until I buy a sealed cabinet. I have cats... can you imagine how I'd feel if they knocked the plates down and smashed them?!

 

Ha haha...." I have cats ".........nuff said !!!

Speaking of which.....where is NuffSaid ?

 

Very nice, Milly! And what a wonderful thing to have your opinion confirmed.

 

Komokwa... I've six of the little feline devils. China and glass stands no chance here unless under lock and key!

 

6 ?? ...I pity your X-mas tree !!!

( & drapes....& back of sofa where you don't look until it's too late..! )

 

and your jewelry! I have two furry kleptomaniacs myself. I blind-lucked into some Meissen fruit plates here a while ago, paid $20US for a set of six. Still have them packed away.

 

Yeah, one of my cats smacked a ruby anniversary ring my husband bought me I know not where. Haven't found it in past 10 years. One particularly liked shiny things. I would buy a cabinet just to display the Meissen.... if you found them, you will find a case to display them in. Congratulations!

 

Great find on that tray Lynnie!
Those plates are beautiful paulsspangle! yes, it seems cats are drawn to the beautiful and expensive pieces, best to leave them boxed up for now.

 

Hi,
My cats don't do things like that, except my Alfie who jumped a 12 ft cabinet and pulled down my Fry opaline baking pan with original label. I do not know how he got away without the pan killing him. He was lucky then and even more lucky that I did not go after him with a meat cleaver. How he got to 25 without dying was a miracle. It was the only thing he ever broke. Why he thought he could jump 12 ft from the floor at age 20 I'll never understand.
greg

 

He was a male. Duh.(LOL)

 

LOL! Got up at 5 a.m. today. Very few sales today, but I got up early to go to a sale that advertised 60 years worth of antiques. Well, that was a big fib. I waited until the older couple got up, the jewelry was Wal-mart stuff. So I drove to an estate sale that said no early birds at the next town down. I got there a half hour early, and of course, people were already there. A guy was going through an earring box, and a big basket of jewelry was on the floor. He said he didn't find anything in it, but he grabbed the earrings all for $20 before I could look. I know there had to be some nice 14k earrings in there, because I found the mate to one in a cardboard box- huge opal 14k single earring......
So most of what you see was in the basket, a few things from another estate sale down the road and two more yard sales... all sterling, some very heavy pieces in the basket. The top price on any one items was $5, and only three things cost that- most was $2 to $3 a piece. I did pick up some 14k and nice costume, not photographed. Getting up at 4 a.m. tomorrow.

 

Doesn't appear to be very aged but the only similar I can find online is thought to be near . Made of lead.

 

Going back a bit, is that a tube of (nuclea)r radiated cleaning cream? I wonder how that works?

and back to the Meissen plates, paulsspangle, do you live near Stourbridge.

 

Stourbridge Massachusetts? If it's the one near Boston I'm about two hours out. Dunno about Paul.