Featured Battered Victorian Silver Beaker (London, 1856)

This was part of a crumpy old box lot I bought. What I am showing here are BEFORE & AFTER photographs, of my attempts to press, roll and beat out the dents in the rim, and to polish off the tarnish and discolouration on the body.

The hallmarks are London, 1856

Here are the 'BEFORE' photos: Tarnished, bent, battered and grimy...



Here are the 'AFTER' photos, after considerable hammering, pressing, rolling, and then - polishing:



What do you guys think? I don't reckon it's half bad. I never expected to get it perfect, so I don't really care. My dad thinks I'm a bloody idiot for buying this thing...

 

Hahahaha!! Somehow I'm not entirely sure...

 

Looks almost perfect.

 

It all depends on how much you like it and how much you paid for it

 

I think you did a good job on that....
It's very satisfying to make something nice again I find.

 

VERY NICE!!!! BUT, what if it was SUPPOSED to have "fluting" around the top and you just nicely hammered it out??????????? NAAAAAH.....just teasin' ya, Shangas!

 

Nice work.

 

Thanks for the comments everybody Was glad I could remove most of the dents

 

Shangas - using some simple tools you appear to work close to miracles on dented, aged, and neglected silver - what do you think you and your tools could do for a dented, aged and neglected human?????

 

Well to remove (or at least reduce) the dents on this cup, all I used was a $10 wooden-shafted, steel-head ballpeen hammer I bought at a craft-shop, and a cheap, wooden rolling-pin with one of the knobs sawn off, as a sort of mandril to shape the metal around.

I slipped the cup around the pin and started beating the metal flat where it popped in or out, to give it a more uniform look. Then I rolled the pin back and forth across the cup's edge on a hard, flat surface to try and press out even more dents.

It wasn't easy, but that's how I did it.

 

I'd give that a pass if I were you, Mansons. Sounds a little rough. Nice job, Shangas, but I wouldn't use that technique on a human.

 

er, that depends on the human.......................

 

Looked up the Maker's Mark:

Thomas Hughes Headland (THH). Active from the 1830s, it seems. The mark I have was registered in 1853.

 

That's your problem when using the wrong type of hammer,try this type .......... http://www.garrettwade.com/dead-blow-hammers-2.html