Featured A bonanza

This was one of my better silver scores ever. 7lbs of silver for $200. Plus lots of silverplate and other stuff. Not pictured is the 16th-17th century Scandinavian ball knop spoon I posted here a while back. Also not pictured a dresser jar with a 1ozt sterling lid. Even a Tiffany and a Jensen piece in the bunch. The deal ended up going kinda weird but still, 7lbs of silver.

 

Good finds. At $200 the seller was really trying to give everything away. I'm guessing an estate cleanout?

I bought a handful of silver for $5 at a garage sale one time and the sellers knew full well it was sterling. They asked why I wanted it since, "...it is no good anymore now that it is tarnished." My brain could not process a response to that and I think i just stared at them awkwardly. hahaha

 

That's amazing! Congrats!!

I've only had one super-score of silver, but that one sure keeps me looking for the next.

 

Well done, J!

 

Holey Moley!

 

The cup next to the large ladle is my favorite, amazing deal. Did you want to elaborate on how the deal went sideways? I always like to hear those stories as I have plenty of my own

 

I like the 3 large spoons with the faith hope & charity ?

 

Wowser, what a great score, congrats @J Dagger

lol, you can't leave us hanging, what happened?

it is no good anymore now that it is tarnished." My brain could not process a response to that and I think i just stared at them awkwardly. hahaha
that is hilarious @TreaShore welcome to the forum

 

@J Dagger - Congrats on what appears to be a fantastic haul!!

I also agree we need details on how everything went down.

The stupid do walk among us & many of us here thank God every day that they do!!

BTW @TreaShore welcome to the forum!!

This is a great group here with tons of very knowledgeable folks. Some are here daily, some only stop by occasionally & some have to be paged.

However, very few inquiries go unanswered in some way or another.

 

Thank you.

 

Thank you.

 

This we gotta hear! Somebody get the popcorn ready!

 

I wish I knew! I fully intended to ask but after it went a little sideways that was out of the picture. I assume it was either an inherited collection that they knew nothing about or maybe they bought a storage unit and didn’t know what they had. I’m very much inclined to think the first for various reasons.

nice score on the forever tarnished silver.

 

One is enough to hook ya!

 

Thanks. Yeh I’ve always wanted but never had a silver beaker so I was thrilled to find it.

It is a long story kinda. Basically the seller offered two pieces for sale. Both being very nice pieces of silver that he was calling silver plate. Both were either coin, provincial, or maybe Scottish based on the marks I’d think. I couldn’t see the marks well though. The guy had sold a few large pieces of sterling already and I had seen the ads for them. So he seemed to know what sterling meant but didn’t know more than that. So I bought the two pieces and inquired if he had more. He showed me photos of two large bins and said I could come pick through them. I didn’t want him to see what I picked and then decide to charge me a crazy amount or to realize those things were probably the best and go back on his offer. So I just offered to buy it all for $200. He agreed. I was feeling lazy and told him I’d come the next day instead of that night. As I was en route to pick everything up he said he’d be out but that he could leave it all on the porch for me. I agreed. I specifically asked if the two initial pieces I purchased were with the rest of it and he said yes. He said his wife even threw in a box of flatware she found in the China cabinet. I thanked him for the generosity. So I picked up two massive bins and went home. Slowly over a few days I went though them. I’m patient and wanted to extend the joy. It wasn’t until pulling out the final few things that I realized the two initial pieces weren’t there. I also realized that a few of the large pieces I suspected were silver from the bins were not there. On top of that many of the pieces had been irreversibly damaged by scratching them with a Brillo pad, pouring testing acid on them, and leaving it there. I got in touch about all of that and he basically ignored me about the things in the bins that I thought were missing, and the acid damage, and told me that his wife had given away the two initial pieces I bought. I called him out because he had sent me a photo of everything the night before which included those two pieces. He offered a refund on the initial pieces, I told him I didn’t want a refund, I wanted what I purchased. I told him I didn’t believe the story about his wife giving them away and that I was going to file a police report and talk about what happened on a local social media group. I was bluffing but I could tell he was a guy that cared about his standing in the community and that he would want to avoid that. He magically came up with one of the pieces and still offered a refund of the initial price to cover the missing item. It was the intentionally leaving things out and lying about it that irked me. I had won big already but it was the principal of the matter I wanted addressed. The funny thing is that he tested things that literally said sterling on them and still didn’t realize they were sterling. He seemed to think it was easier to test than to look at the marks. He just didn’t realize what result to look for once he put the acid on. Luckily he didn’t test most of the flatware. So I went to pick up the one thing he magically found. I think the first night he was just avoiding facing me knowing I might discover the missing things. I assume that is why he wasn’t present for that. When it came to picking up the missing thing I told him that I was really upset about what happened and that I’d prefer not to deal with him in person. My temper was at a fever pitch after going back and forth with him. I didn’t want to lose my cool so I asked him to just leave it on the porch like he did last time. He insisted he wanted to talk to me. I insisted I didn’t want to talk to him and that I’d like him to just leave it out and we could call it a day. He did that and then of course came out to address me anyway. He insisted he was an honest guy and that I was being irrational to be upset. I insisted he wasn’t honest since he had lied to me about the missing things and didn’t disclose the extensive damage to many of the items. He kept pushing it and I eventually just yelled at him and left. If I had paid $200, gotten everything I purchased in expected condition but everything turned out to plated I would have been perfectly happy. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I felt weird complaining after going home with 7lbs of silver but it was such blatant disrespect and he was such a d*ck about it when I called him out that I felt I had to do something about it. so anywho it was an aggravating deal but obviously worth it in the end. Had I gotten everything I paid for it would have been exponentially better. I guess after I bought the first two pieces he must have done some research and realized what they were and then looked through the rest of it and realized what more of it was. Such is life.

 

If those pieces had been there and the rest had been plate, it would have been deal done and everything as promised. Can't change your mind once a deal is struck;it's too late. As it was, he stole things from you and pretended it was all there and hoped you wouldn't complain. Not a bright idea. Ananais and Sapphira come to mind, and you know what happened to THEM. The swore "it's all there"; it wasn't, and G-d literally struck them dead for lying.

 

That must be what the motif is. I haven’t examined them in a while so don’t recall. I can’t see a heart (charity) in my grainy photo but see hope and faith. Those have some interesting inscriptions on them. I believe I mentioned them in passing in another post. Those are good choices.

I love it all but I particularly like the double handled Dutch brandy cup/bowl, the teapot, beaker, and winged beasties set of demitasse spoons.

 

Precisely. It was an odd feeling. I had done more than well enough to be satisfied but yet wasn’t satisfied since I didn’t get I paid for and got lied to about it. I think he probably wasn’t generally a guy that goes around ripping people off but he definitely wasn’t above board on this one.