Featured Austrian Cigarette case

Hello,
I purchased this cigarette case around 20 years ago from a seller in Europe, but I don't remember from which country (maybe Germany). I think I paid maybe $600-700 for it.

it has some area that is gold colored, but I don't know if it is gold or if it is silver but painted gold. There are also a bunch of tiny stones that maybe are diamond, but I haven't tested them.

There are a lot of hallmarks on the case and all of them are in a row. There is also one G.A.S mark on the outside of the box (not shown in the photos).

The strange part is that it has both 900 silver mark and another mark which indicates it is Austrian but it also has an 88 mark which I think Russians used. The case is in a box by C.E.Bolin, a shop in St Petersburg.

Is this a case that was made in Austria and sold in Russia? And does it look legit?
And any guess as to how much it might be worth these days?

 

wonderful case...and boxed to boot !!

 

Maker is Georg Adam Scheid of Vienna.

 

https://thevintagecompactshop.com/b...GYRbqUVya5QuHQLzUCTE1aE3xPHao9TJrMcdcu15ZmhIL

The internet says he made pieces for the Russian market.

Debora

 

He surely did. Worked with Faberge! No idea what it would be worth today.

 

Are we sure he worked with Fabergé? The internet only says that some of his pieces later showed up for sale with the Fabergé mark.

Debora

 

He made things for Faberge . At least some of those marks were legit. Maybe not all of them, but some of them.

 

And any guess as to how much it might be worth these days?


not a clue............. it's worth what you can get for it on the open market...

try a couple of high end auction houses... as they may give u a ballpark...in hopes of seeing it in their consignments .....

the tobacconia market is down these days...... but silver gold and jewels.... with an association ..or hint of Faberge......... wellllllllll.......hummmmm...

 

A master piece! Georg Adam Scheid does very well in sales, the Russian connection is indeed a +

 

Beautiful case, Rays.

The top crown means it would have been made for a member of the aristocracy. Whether that member was Russian or Austrian is difficult to see, but my guess would be a Russian aristocrat.
In Western Europe this specific crown would be of either a duke or marquis, but it would be interesting to research Russian crowns.

The double-headed eagle with imperial crown, like you see on the guilloche enameled centre, was used by both empires. There is a slight difference between the two crowns, but that is too small to be depicted on such a small crest.
C.E. Bolin was a jeweller to the Russian court, so that makes a case for it having been made for a Russian aristocrat.

And it looks legit to me.

Very likely gold appliqués.

Have them tested if you can. They could be diamonds or sapphires.

 

Do you have any info on that?
As far as I know he was German, but took an apprenticeship in nearby Austria at an early age and continued to be firmly rooted in the Habsburg (Austro-Hungarian) Empire.

His work was high quality and it doesn't surprise me that Bolin, a high end jeweller in St Petersburg sold his creations. I have never read of a connection with Fabergé though.
The Fabergé shop did sell work by others, just like Bolin did, but I don't know if Fabergé sold work by G.A. Scheid.
But even if we have proof that Fabergé sold Scheid pieces, selling Scheid's work does not imply that he worked with Fabergé.

 

I love anything with guilloche enamel!!!! Splendid!

 

Nice piece! Wish these old eyes could make out all the marks, but can see that the mark at far right is an '84' rather than '88' - the fineness is .900, so it wouldn't have been stamped '88' since it wouldn"t meet the minimum .916 (88 zolotnik) quality.

Can't say I've heard of a Fabergé/Scheid connection either, other than pieces of their extremely fine enamel work are found with fake Fabergé stamps, usually overstamped or the Scheid marks removed. Russian silver was and is so widely faked, that similar Continental silver by other makers also had their marks replaced with Russian marks, not just Fabergé...

~Cheryl

 

Good idea. I will send the pics and see if any of them are interested and if they give a ballpark figure. Thanks.

 

You are right Cheryl. It's 84 and not 88. Your eyes are much better than mine

 

Thanks for the info about the crown. That's interesting information. I thought the crown was simply to make it look fancy and part of the decoration rather than signifying something about the owner.

You are right about the gold looking part. I examined it very closely with a loupe and I can see a tiny spot that is flat and is not gold colored.

I am curious about the stones too, specially that bigger sapphire looking stone. I have some cheap diamond tester somewhere....if I can find it, I will test it
Thanks.

 

That's a back-of-my brain connection. I was told once by a fine antiques dealer that Faberge sold some Scheid pieces, and a brain fart may have added the rest.

 

I hate to spoil the party, but Scheid has never worked for Fabergé, Bolin or any other Russian (court) jeweller. There is no doubt that the case is a genuine Scheid, about 100-120 years old. However, it was later tinkered with. The supposedly Russian double headed eagle is just awful. I assume there originally was a different emblem or a cipher/monogram that was replaced by the eagle in order to cheat/deceive an innocent customer. And to make the story more convincing, the forger put the case in a (fake ?) Bolin box in order to enhance its value and sell it at a higher price.
If the case had really been imported into Russia before August 1914, there has to be a Russian import mark. But there is none. All the marks that are trying to establish a Russian connection do not match required hallmarks by the Russian laws at the time and are faint/rubbed so that they are difficult to read.

Fabergé and also to a lesser extend Bolin had a fixed set of workmasters/workshops who worked for them, generally on an exclusive basis. But they were all from Russia. In the case of Fabergé there are exceptions regarding some objects sold by the London branch and also the carved stone (animal) figures. They were mostly made in Idar Oberstein in Germany.

 

Thank you so much for your input. There are a lot of fake Russian silver out there, so yeah, I suppose someone could have tampered with the box to create a Russian connection. Do you think that just the eagle was added on later or everything sitting on the lid was added later and the case was just a simple silver silver case?

 

The eagle is definitively a fake (Look at the pour quality of the enamel). Given the pictures above it is difficult to say if the rest is genuine or also a fake. The crown, the golden scrollwork and the green enamel plaque look as if they were also made around the time of the case. However, it could be that they originally were part of another item and everything was put together (case, crown/enamel part and the eagle), a kind of marriage, in order to create the case we have now.
I personally think the lid is „too crowded“ and that the applications on it are just to big for the case, but that’s just my feeling, it’s not a fact.
What does the inside of the case look like?