Featured William Spratling (Mexican) Sterling Quaich!!

Any Spratling experts here? I picked up two William Spratling objects at an estate sale yesterday (for pennies). One of them is a quaich. I’ve never seen a silver quaich by any Mexican maker before, and don’t see any mention of them online in reference to W. Spratling.

2.75” in diameter x 4.35” long.

It was dark and dirty; I polished it.

The hallmarks indicate that both were made from 1940-1946, with a different source saying 1931-1946.

 

Whoo! No idea what it's worth, but any Spratling is good money.

 

Good money is always good. I buy and sell lots of cool things, but silver I keep.
Here's the other item I got, with an unusually sharp hallmark. There's also a WS carved on the bottom of the rosewood base. Approx. 3" x 4"

 

Rosewood and silver ashtray. Nice one; it looks like a classy place to put your car keys.

 

Wow. Yummy...Thanks!

 

Beautiful!

 

https://www.johnmoran.com/auction-lot/a-willaim-spratling-sterling-silver-tea-strainer-_D774B91B95

 

Looks like you'll have to go back for the strainer.
Lovely stuff though, by a great name.

 

@DragonflyWink and Any Jewelry
Well, isn't that something!
I dug deep; don't think the strainer part was there.
Exact same size and shape as a typical quaich, which is what I'll use it for (although there are easier ways to drink scotch
Thanks for uncovering that. I don't know how you did it.

 

A few other Spratling tea strainers, all from the same period:
A direct link does not work, but they are on the spratlingsilver.com site under "tea strainers," which I never thought to search for.

 

If only it had been by a Scottish maker. Quaichs come in many sizes, btw.
Mexico isn't really quaich territory.

 

@Any Jewelry
True, this is on the small side for a quaich, but not unusually small. Mexico is not exactly tea territory either, unless you count herbal (hibiscus!) and medicinal "teas". Look on eBay for "Mexico" tea strainer and you'll find fewer than 10 of them, and mostly by makers that catered, to a large degree, to the foreign market.

 

There are both modern specialised and old fashioned tearooms in Mexico, and other places generally serve tea as well. You just haven't been to them.
Spratling's sophisticated clientèle would have had tea and tea strainers.

 

My Spratling books are packed away, but I knew the piece so a quick search found an example, and without the strainer, can see why a quaich might come to mind, but that is a distinctly Scottish form. There are certainly other two-handled silver vessels for food or drink, but they're not quaichs - brandy bowls, most often Dutch, as well as double-handled porringers come first to mind...

https://clan.com/blog/tradition-of-the-quaich

As a note, the quaich form was eventually adopted for various uses - this ad is from 1920, offering items from a 2" diameter open salt to a 7.5" trophy (also produced in even larger sizes):




~Cheryl

 

Nope, it's a holder for a 1920s sterling silver stock brokers dreidel (Gorham), that's what it is. Picked it up today at an estate sale.

 

Works for me! Does the dreidel come with a "lose everything" mark with option to drink slivovitz?

 

BUY LOW, SELL HIGH, WORK, HIRE ASSISTANT, PLAY GOLF, and LEAVE EARLY

. . . but you're right, it needed more options in the run-up to 1929

 

To play Dreidel you need a Lose Everything side. Just ask @komokwa. He's played a few games of it.

 

I guess in the Roaring '20s nobody thought Losing Everything was a possibility. Kinda like these days, but I'm no financial expert.

 

Me either. All I know about the stock market is it's a slightly less risky version of Vegas, but without the neon.