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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;MrNate, post: 1938735, member: 5515&quot;]Thank you everyone for your guesses, thoughts, and insights in today&#039;s game. This post isn&#039;t necessarily a spoiler, as I still haven&#039;t received the items in the photo. But yes, of course if I&#039;m posting these photos I pulled the trigger and gambled. And gamble is the key word, I truly don&#039;t know what I&#039;m getting, but I&#039;m really hopeful I&#039;m correct about what I&#039;m getting. Now, here&#039;s a point that may shock some of you, I specifically asked <u>not</u> to receive the large water pitcher. That may well be a mistake, but allow me to walk you through my thought process that has been successful for quite some time:</p><p><br /></p><p>1. Step one as many of you already know is the scanning through 1,000&#039;s of listings to find something that looks promising. I work hard to eliminate all the stuff that in my mind isn&#039;t worth even asking about. Usually I&#039;m trying to spot one item in a bunch that is worth the gamble. And my eyes zeroed in on the little mug/tankard on the upper right of the photograph.</p><p><br /></p><p>2. So about the pitcher. I have nothing conclusive that convinces me that it&#039;s not silverplate. It very well could be real silver, but I just don&#039;t have much to go off of. The exterior bird and flower decoration is pretty, it has a nice tone on the outside, but it just seems &quot;chunky&quot; to me. My subconscious logic was that it must be plated because if you were using that thickness of silver, wouldn&#039;t you work a little harder on the design? Additionally, I just didn&#039;t see &quot;sterling&quot; popping out on the bottom mark (i know it&#039;s hard to see anything on the bottom&quot; and I would expect given the tarnished sides to see a makers mark with that deep black tarnish that fills in makers marks over time). It just didn&#039;t add up, so I specifically asked it to be omitted in the shipment....Why on earth would I do that????</p><p><br /></p><p>3. So to respond to a few thoughts from Steffanie: this is not from an auction/estate sale etc. There&#039;s no other lots to look at. This site is individual sellers, and they are listing stuff to sell locally (but I&#039;m not local). So the delicate dance that I must lead is to make the transaction as easy as possible for them, because if I ask too many questions this is what happens:</p><p><br /></p><p>-&quot;Umm, it&#039;s only $20 I really don&#039;t want to answer questions, just come take a look at it if you want it&quot; (that&#039;s a problem because I&#039;m not local)</p><p><br /></p><p>-&quot;Oh...you know after you asked for those extra photos I took a closer look and I think this is worth a lot more than I thought; sorry I won&#039;t be selling this and I&#039;m taking down the listing, my apologies!&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>But even assuming I get past those hurdles, here&#039;s the real issue: I have to make the transaction super easy because I&#039;m asking the seller to do something extra for me, I&#039;m asking them to pack it up and ship it to me. And with all of my deals, I pay the asking price plus the shipping cost. So from the perspective of the seller, they are still only getting their asking price. If i&#039;m not convenient and easy, this is what I get:</p><p><br /></p><p>-&quot;You know, for $20 I&#039;d rather just wait until someone local buys it from me, it&#039;s just a big hassle for a small amount of money, sorry&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>So....if I feel somewhat confident that the pitcher is silverplated, in a way I&#039;m giving the seller more than they were asking. I get what I hope are the goodies, and they get to keep one of the items. So I&#039;m giving them a better deal than the local purchase without paying more. <u>PLUS</u> I need to keep the shipping cost down, since I&#039;m gambling after all I need my wrong guesses to be cheap.</p><p><br /></p><p>4. On to the details of the item I was looking at. I honestly didn&#039;t look at anything other than the pitcher and the mug/tankard, because it&#039;s too small of a lot to factor in to my decision. Simple math = if i think the tankard is silver, BUY! If I don&#039;t think it&#039;s silver, PASS! And if anything else is silver yay!</p><p><br /></p><p>So many of you were eyeing that tankard and so was I. It was rather interesting that they knew to flip up the bottom, but I&#039;ve accepted for a long time that <u>many people</u> unwittingly sell silver for well below value. If you doubt that, feel free to look back on some of my posts over the last few years. It happens, and it even happens to people who are somewhat knowledgeable on the subject.</p><p><br /></p><p>So the obvious part on the mug that got me instantly interested was the marks on the base. I immediately thought <u>OLD</u> and I hope I&#039;m right. The tone of the mug in the first photo is exactly what I&#039;m looking for, it has an uneven tarnish and a few &quot;stubborn&quot; tarnish spots that seems to occur more with the real stuff. I used photo 1 to compare to styles/periods of mugs tankards when I was doing my initial research. The mug kind of appears to have a pattern on it, but it&#039;s really hard to tell (and might be my eyes playing tricks on me). But if it doesn&#039;t have a pattern, it&#039;s almost warn off from years of use.</p><p><br /></p><p>The other observation, this doesn&#039;t look like a modern manufacture job. The outside of the mug looks rippled, hopefully from a few thousand hammer hits to make it into shape. So on to photo two: Those wonderful marks (which I hope are legit). What&#039;s promising to me: they aren&#039;t stamped in some great uniform fashion, they&#039;re just roughly assembled on the bottom which to me makes it more likely to be authentic from the period I&#039;m hoping for.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now on to the &quot;banged up nature&quot; of the mug. That&#039;s a GREAT sign, it hopefully means it&#039;s soft metal. Now I tried to tie all the clues together. Cluster of four marks on the base, shape/style of the mug, the style of the handle etc. etc.... So, if I get very lucky I&#039;m going to be the proud owner of a banged up Georgian Sterling Mug from the mid to late 1700&#039;s. My fingers are crossed, but if I&#039;m wrong, I was only wrong for $35. I should get the package Wednesday or Thursday.</p><p><br /></p><p>*One final note. Since the item is already in the mail, I went back and asked for additional photos of the pitcher just to see if the seller will send them. This seller was very nice, but it was a hard deal to close since I would send a message and it would be 7-8 hours before they responded...every time I sent a message. It was a full two days to get the deal moving, so I didn&#039;t feel like adding any friction into it until I knew something was heading my way.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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