Featured HiHo Soldered Railway Silver

I just picked these two pieces up and have been doing some research on them. Very tarnished but I loved them. I think they are 'lidded' creamers as they are only about 4" tall. Great Northern Railway - Rogers Bros. Soldered Nickel Silver. (1/2 Pints?)... I read that in 1898, "IS" marks were added for International Silver. My question is, does the fact that there are no "IS" marks on these mean that they are prior to 1898? Can anyone give me some info or research locations for the other numbers on the marks? Patent Handle? SX0251? X stamp with 46? 02600? Asterisk with 13? Also, should I attempt to clean these in any way or does that add to the charm? I know with other older civil war era antiques with patina, cleaning them is a no-no, is soldered railroad silver the same way? Also, does the double stamping add to the value or was it common? Thanks.

 

Not necessarily before

Most likely 1890 - 1920 for the style

The market is railroad people - no need to polish

 

Them were the days, eh?

 

I do love RR,Shipping & Steamboat China.Pottery hoard from the Steamship Arabia.
On September 5, 1856, just outside of Kansas City, the Arabia hit a snag and sank in minutes. 150 passengers and crew made it off the boat safely.
But the 200 tons of cargo were lost to the muddy river, not to be seen again for over 130 years

 

Wow ... goosebumps reading that story... now I have to go look it up to learn more... I'm a treasure hunter at heart and love stories of things that were lost, discovered to be appreciated again ... awesome

 

Ol' Muddy...just imagine what still remains to be discovered on that commercial riverbed. Sigh...

 

You're walking into a complete 1856 Gold Rush General Store,from buttons to preserved pickles.

 

I live just sixty miles from the Museum. It is fabulous. We first went there a few years after they opened the museum. The family would give a talk before you began the self guided tour. Amazing story. Now the grandchildren are grown up and taking their place. The family had located dozens of wrecks to be dug up and offered to help people get started. No one did so they have started a dig less than 30 miles from my house at Malta Bend . A number of towns along the Missouri River are named after ships that sunk. The neat thing they are doing is inviting high school students out to map the ship and participate in the process. I plan on taking our granddaughters out to see the site when they are out visiting. The most amazing part is that they knew nothing about preserving and restoring and they have done all of this and still continue to clean and restore items from the Arabia. Join their Facebook page and they highlight items and their restoration. After being buried for 150 years , the preserved pickles and cherries were still edible.

 

Lark-I saw these guys on TV a few months ago and yes-there's more wrecks out there.The fact that the foods edible is insane !
I had a silly idea-if you salvaged period floors,walls,doors,windows & fixtures,you would literally have a completely authentic 'time warp' General Store-weird !
PS-This place is a bucket list destination.
PSS-Maybe you should metal detecting your backyard.

 

I want to do that with the granddaughters. My husband use to metal detect and I have wanted to do our yard since things pop up with the freezing a thawing. To be honest we have not had time since we retired 10 years ago because we had so much to do on this old pre civil war house and we had started our own business. I can guarantee you it has been done many times over the years while it stood vacant. The Arabia is amazing and I have been to museums all over the world . This one ranks up there as one of my favorites.