Saint Genesius Medal Cleaning Question

A reader sent us this question.

Jim, I have a round, Saint Genesius medal necklace, purchased about 1973. It is slightly larger than a quarter and about the same thickness. I believe it was purchased from a religious supplier…maybe from NYC???.

On the bottom is stamped “Sterling Creel” or “Sterling Greel”. No one seems to know what this is and I haven’t found anything on the Internet about it. The biggest reason I’m asking…aside from general curiosity…is that silver polishing cloths and solutions do not clean it. The only way I that has worked is to use a soft polishing wheel on my Dremel tool – on slow. I’ve only done this twice in 35 years because I know it’s removing silver as well as the tarnish. The tarnishing is extremely uneven. The relief image on the front seems to polish up a little, but the tarnish on the smooth back
doesn’t.

Any information or suggestions?

Thank you very much. This is THE MOST prized possession I have.

If anyone out there has some information about this, leave a comment or send us an email.

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Candelabra Identification Question

A reader named Jeffrey has asked for assistance in identifying the candelabra shown in these pictures. I am not familiar with the mark, "SA". If you have any ideas, please add your comment or send us an email.

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An Ad for Our Ads

In the right column of this blog you can find ads placed there automatically by Google. You only see two but there are actually ten. You can access the others with the up and down arrows. Ads also appear near the very bottom of the screen.

Google tries to place ads that relate to the content of the blog. If you are displaying the entire blog, you can count on the fact to 80% or more of the ads will relate to silver somehow. Many will be for sellers of sterling silver. If you are looking to buy, click on these ads to check out what's available and at what price. If you are looking to sell, click on the same ads and look for information regarding how to sell to the advertiser.

If you are displaying only a single blog entry, the ads may vary quite a bit. For example, if the article you are displaying talks about knives, you may see an ad for a seller of Bowie knives! So, for the best ad content, make sure you are displaying the entire blog.

Google also provides a search tool in the right column. Searching from this blog has some predefined search criteria relating to silver. You'll find more ads among the displayed search results, also silver related.

We encourage you to check out these ads if you are looking for anything related to silver.

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An "Eggciting" Tarnish Experiment

We've mentioned several times the effect certain foods can have on sterling. We decided to have a little fun with one of the primary culprits - eggs! We boiled an egg, cut it into small pieces and placed them in a bowl. We placed a silver plate piece next to the bowl and kept them overnight inside a cake container. You see the before and after pictures below along with a picture of the cake container.

BEFORE

AFTER

The "after" picture really does not show how dramatic the change was. The sulphur in the egg caused significant tarnish in just 12 hours. The moral of this story is to wash your sterling soon after being exposed to eggs!

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How Much Silver is in a Sterling Knife?

A blog reader recently emailed us some questions about sterling knives that we can't answer. His basic question was, "How can you determine how much silver is actually in a sterling knife?" Here are the two basic problems we all face in trying to address this question:

• Knife blades almost always are NOT sterling (in modern times, there are made of stainless steel)
• Knife handles are filled with a cement of some type to hold the blade to the handle

Without taking the knife apart, it's difficult to determine the weight of actual silver content.

This reader thought that there might be some reference sources that could help determine silver content for different patterns and manufacturers.

We would really like to hear from readers knowledgeable about this subject.

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Effect of Silver on Your Health

We recently received an email from a reader regarding a sterling water pitcher she was using. The water from the pitcher had a slight metallic taste, which she actually liked, but she was wondering about health issues. I have summarized her comments into the questions, adding some of my own:

• Could silver (or some other metal) be leeching into the water while it sits in the pitcher?
• If silver is in the water, is it bad for your health?
• Or does it have some positive impact?

We don't feel competent to answer any of these questions definitively. However, we'll offer some comments and pose some questions of our own.

1. Could there be something in the local water supply that's reacting with the sterling? Try pouring some bottled purified water into the pitcher and then drink it. Maybe you should rinse the pitcher thoroughly with purified water as a first step. Does it still taste metallic?
2. Have the tap water chemically analyzed and have some tap water that's been sitting in the pitcher for an hour or so analyzed to see if there is a difference.
3. Invite some neighbors in for a blind taste test to see if they can pick the water from the pitcher!
4. Silver in high enough concentration is bad for you. In severe cases, it will make your skin turn permanently gray. Really!
5. We have heard of health supplements containing silver but we can't comment on their effectiveness for anything and we would not ingest them ourselves.

This is a new topic for us and we hope readers who have more information will post comments or send us emails.

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"Still in Sealed Plastic Sleeve"

We are often asked variations of this question by people interested in selling, "I have some sterling flatware pieces still new in their unopened plastic sleeves. Can I get a higher price for these pieces?" Believe it or not, my answer is, "Yes, but not nearly as much as you think!"

We can't explain it but the marketplace seems to lump all "used" pieces together, even those pieces still in plastic. Maybe it's like the "driving the car off the showroom floor" devaluation syndrome. Here are some other possibilities for the phenomenon:

• Buyers don't trust sellers - maybe the bags have been resealed, not a difficult task


• Poor storage causes damage - abrasions, bends and dents can develop from rough handling during storage even though the pieces are in plastic


• Not all plastic bags remain 100% airtight - we have seen tarnish on pieces that look to be in original sealed bags

So, don't automatically expect to get prices near retail for your sealed pieces. Sorry!

Check the pictures below. They are all of the same fork in what seems to be the original sealed plastic sleeve.

It's hard to tell from the pictures because of the sleeve itself but you can see tiny specks of tarnish at the base of the tines.

Tarnish is really obvious around the words, "Gorham Sterling".

Tarnish is not a serious problem and this fork will polish out to be beautiful. But, technically, it will no longer be "new".

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Need Strasbourg Identification Help

A blog reader has requested help in identifying this Gorham Strasbourg spoon. It's nine inches long with a bowl that's 2 3/4 inches long. Does anyone out there know the proper name of this piece? If so, add a comment to this post or send us an email.


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Why We Hate Chemical Dips!

We've mentioned a few times already that we don't recommend the use of chemical dips to clean sterling flatware. Here's an example of why we say that.

We recently came across some nice Chantilly dinner knives that were in pretty good shape. It was obvious that some of the handles had been cleaned with a chemical dip. In the picture below, the knife on the right is an example. There was one knife in the group that had not been dipped - it's shown on the left. We have not tried to clean them or polish them in any way so far.

Look how "lifeless" and plain the knife on the right looks. The dip has removed all traces of patina and French gray from the knife on the right that the knife on the left still exhibits. And, we still have to polish the knife on the right because the dip leaves a residue on the surface! We'll polish both of these and when we're done, the one on the left will be have much more character than the one on the right. We won't attempt to remove the French gray deep within the pattern of the knife on the left.


Here's an example of another problem - it looks like the person who dipped these knife handles got some of the chemical on the blades. Look at the permanent shadows now embedded in the blade of the knife in the picture below. Beautiful knives were damaged when this could have been avoided.

We cannot tell a lie - we do use chemical dip now and then but not over an entire piece. The most common area is between fork tines where it's hard to polish. We use a Q-tip with the chemical dip to clean between the tines. And, very rarely, we need to remove some excess tarnish from deep within the pattern somewhere. We use a toothpick with a tiny drop of the dip on the tip of the toothpick!

So, please don't immerse your nice sterling in a dip. Let it build up a nice patina over the years.

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eBay Reviews and Guides

Have you had trouble finding the information you need regarding sterling flatware? Here's another source of information:

eBay Reviews and Guides

I suggest entering "sterling flatware" in the keyword search field as a starting search. You can refine your search once you see the type of information available. You''ll probably be more interested in Guides than Reviews. Most of these were written by people who have knowledge about a specific subject. For example, you can find Guides that discuss these topics related to sterling:

• Cleaning
• Buying
• Selling
• Identifying
• Specific manufacturers
• Silver purity
• Setting the table

Be aware that some Guides may not be completely accurate or the author may have a particular bias so don't assume that you have the best answer. On the other hand, this is a good place to go for additional information.

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About Teaspoons

The teaspoon is probably the most common piece of sterling flatware in use. If you're like me, you have extra teaspoons in your set. It's so common that we don't give it much thought. But, there are subtle touches to to the teaspoon family.

I assume that all sterling flatware patterns include at least one style of teaspoon, typically in the length range of 5 7/8 inches to 6 inches. This spoon is used mostly to stir hot tea or coffee but it also could be used as an ice cream spoon, a jelly serving spoon, a condiment spoon and other purposes. Notice that I said "hot tea"; here in the South when we say "tea", we most often mean "iced tea".

The picture below illustrates three types of spoons in the Prelude pattern by International. The longest spoon is the standard teaspoon (6 inches). The middle spoon is often called a "youth" spoon (5 3/8 inches). The smallest spoon is a demitasse spoon (4 1/8 inches) used to stir Turkish coffee or espresso.

The middle spoon could also be used as a "five o'clock" spoon. Many patterns include five o'clock spoons that are only about 1/4 inch shorter than standard teaspoons.



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We Need Topics!

This blog has been in operation for ten months. Almost 12,000 readers have "visited" the blog. Most of the posts have been created based upon what we thought might be of interest to readers.

We would like to have direct input from you regarding topics of interest to you that we have not covered. Please send an email or post a comment and tell us what you would like to read about. If we don't know much about your topic, we'll create a post asking others for input.

Let us hear from you!

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What's My Sterling Worth? - Revisited

The hottest general topic on this blog, based on web pages actually viewed and search terms used in Google and other search engines, is some variation on the theme, "How do I sell my sterling flatware and how much is it worth?" Last year, we decided to test the waters and secured real quotes, in writing, from three different reputable businesses that buy and sell used sterling flatware - a very large dealer, a large dealer and a small dealer.

We've seen these businesses sell on eBay and we've seen web sites and catalogs of theirs outside of eBay. We've seen their ads pop up in the Google ads in the right column and at the bottom of this blog.

We told them we had a set of Gorham Chantilly in excellent condition with no monograms that we wanted to sell. The 56 pieces in this fictitious set were:

• Eight place-size forks, 7.5 inches long
• Eight place-size knives, 9.25 inches long
• Eight salad forks
• Eight teaspoons
• Eight iced tea spoons
• Eight oval soup spoons
• One gravy ladle
• One sugar spoon
• Two serving tablespoons
• One pierced serving tablespoon
• One cold meat fork
• One cake/pie server
• One flat master butter knife

The three quotes we received to purchase our set ranged from $872.00 to $938.00, a difference of $66.00, or 7%. For the highest quote, the average price per piece was $16.75.

So, if you had a set like this in excellent condition, you could expect to get at least $938.00 for it. All three dealers included in the wording of their quotes a caveat that if the set was not in excellent condition according to their guidelines, the price would be less.

We should insert a note here to say that at the time these quotes were generated, commodity silver was around $20.00 per Troy ounce. Today, it's in the $14.25 ballpark. This may affect negatively a price quote we might obtain today but probably not terribly much. If we're selling to a scrap dealer, the commodity price drop would have a more significant impact.

What was the retail price of this set? Prices from multiple retailers were well over $5,000.

So, what's this set worth? It all depends on who's buying and who's selling! If you use the retail price as your benchmark, you may be disappointed in what you are actually able to sell your set for. On the other hand, if you can find an end-user buyer who will want your set for personal use, you can probably get more than what the dealers offered. Consignment shops, craigslist.org and eBay are three possible channels that come to mind to try to reach this end-user buyer.

As always, comments and emails on this subject are welcome.

FYI for any techies interested: We are able to tell what pages have been viewed and what search terms were used by accessing a web tool called "Google Analytics".

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Caveat Emptor Reminder

Followers of this blog should know by now that we are not fans of made up, or "custom", sterling flatware pieces. However, we can see they might address a specific need of a collector. So, they are OK as long as:

• The buyer has a need that can be addressed by a made up piece
• The price is appropriate
• The buyer likes the look and feel of the piece
• The seller discloses that the piece is made up

What brings this subject to mind yet again is a plethora of made up pieces being offered on eBay. Not all of the sellers disclose in their listings that the pieces are made up. Here are some clues to look for:

• The handles strongly resemble dinner knife handles
• The seller offers strikingly similar pieces in many patterns
• The seller offers many pieces that have similar handles but different utility ends

Some made up pieces are not made with knife handles but are "carved" from other pieces. For example, a teaspoon or dessert spoon might be converted into an ice cream spoon.

If you are unsure of a piece you are considering, ask the seller about it. If you would like to read other posts about made up pieces, look in the column on the right under "Labels" and click on "Made Up".

We welcome your thoughts on this subject and we are willing to post comments from sellers of made up pieces.

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About Forks, Part II

One of our earliest posts was called About Forks. Later, we added a post called Luncheon, Place & Dinner Size - What's the Difference?. Both posts dealt with the various sizes of forks one might find within a single pattern. This post adds additional information along the same line.

Sticking with our old friend, Chantilly by Gorham, for yet another example, we remind you that in the Chantilly pattern, there are two basic fork categories that are about 7.5 inches long - a "place" fork and a "dinner" fork (called "table" fork in early Gorham literature). The place fork is slightly narrower and lighter than the dinner fork. On the back of place forks in several patterns, Gorham imprints the letter, "P", inside a diamond shape.

The heavier dinner fork does not have any special marks regarding its size. Now, here's the rub, at least in the Chantilly pattern - Gorham has made at least two different dinner forks. Look at the picture below. The dinner fork on the bottom is the one we see most often. It has tines that are 2 inches long. The dinner fork on top has tines that are 2 3/8 inches long. Since both forks are 7.5 inches long overall, the top fork has a slightly shorter handle than the one on the bottom and the base area of the tines is also slightly shorter. The fork on top is about 1/16 inch wider than the one on the bottom.

So, if you are buying additional dinner forks, especially in the Chantilly pattern, make sure you understand how long the tines are. Most sellers, us included, will make sure that you know about it if the tines are 2 3/8 inches but we might not mention it if the tines are 2 inches. If it's not specified for some forks you're considering buying, ask the seller about it.

Here's another reminder - many sellers state in their ads that they are selling dinner forks when, in reality, they are selling luncheon forks, dessert forks or place forks. Always understand the overall length, width and tine length of forks you're considering. And, in the case of Gorham patterns, understand the distinction between place and dinner forks.

If you would like to see all our posts about forks at one time, look in the right column under "Labels" and click on "Forks".

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About Asparagus Serving Pieces

We visited a very large antique show in Atlanta a couple of months ago. There were several dealers there who specialized in various forms of silver pieces. At least two dealers had large supplies of ice scoops and asparagus servers in various popular sterling flatware patterns. The pieces were all selling in the $40 to $50 range.

On close inspection of the pieces, it appeared that they were not manufactured by the original sterling flatware companies that owned the patterns. Instead, they looked like they each had a hollow handle cut from original pattern knives to which had been attached a "custom" ice scoop or asparagus server hood. In other words, these were "made up" pieces. You might refer to earlier posts regarding made up pieces. In the right column of this blog, under "Labels", click on "Made Up".

So, that set us to thinking, "What's real and what's not?" We looked at a book published by The Gorham Company in 1914 regarding their Chantilly pattern. The picture below was found in that book. Based on this picture, it looks like Gorham manufactured two basic types of Chantilly asparagus serving pieces at that time: an "asparagus fork" and an "asparagus server". The fork appears to have been made of solid sterling while the server had an attached "hood" that might have been made of sterling, silver plate or something else.

Here is a picture of "asparagus tongs" taken from the book published by The Gorham Company in 1910 regarding their Strasbourg pattern.
It appears that the current market price for these pieces varies widely depending upon the construction. We reviewed sales of asparagus serving pieces that actually sold on eBay over the last couple of weeks. Prices ranged from about $40.00 for an asparagus server with a non-sterling hood to about $560.00 for a solid sterling Chantilly asparagus fork and about $650.00 for Strasbourg asparagus tongs (the tongs looked different from the picture above).

We're not saying that you should not buy a "made up" piece. If it meets your needs and you like it and it's reasonably priced, buy it. What we are saying is that you should understand precisely what you are buying.

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What Exactly is Coin Silver?

Well, we can't define it "exactly". Coin silver flatware was manufactured in America from early colonial times to just after the Civil War. The raw material was melted European coins of the time. They were about 90% pure silver. Compare this purity with that of sterling which is 92.5% pure silver.

We found other references to coin silver flatware that included purity levels as low as 80% pure silver. Therefore, it's difficult to tell the purity definitively.

Coin silver may have a silversmith stamp consisting of the first letter and last initial stamped on the piece. Sometimes the city of manufacture was also stamped on the piece. Hallmarks are not consistent which does not help matters. We understand that several books are available on the subject that might help identify a particular piece by its hallmark.

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What Exactly is Hollowware?

Here's how the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it:

vessels (as bowls, cups, or vases) usually of pottery, glass, or metal that have a significant depth and volume

So, "hollowware" (spelled "holloware" by some) pieces may not contain silver at all. Always understand precisely what a piece is made of before you buy it. If it seems to be silver, is it sterling or silver plate (or something else)? If it's sterling, is it solid sterling or weighted with something internally?
Above is a picture of a sterling pot, an example of hollowware. Below is a close-up picture of the bottom where you can see the word, "sterling".

Some people include items like serving trays within the hollowware definition. Although there is really nothing seriously wrong with doing this, it does not conform exactly to the definition so, again, make sure you know what the pieces are specifically.

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Tired of Searching on eBay Over & Over?

Are you looking for that elusive piece of sterling flatware on eBay? Are you tired of going to eBay everyday to perform the same search? Why not let eBay do the work for you?

You can set up a "saved search" in eBay and whenever eBay finds a match for your search, it will send you an email. Suppose you are looking for a pickle fork in the Old Maryland Engraved pattern by Kirk-Stieff. I couldn't find one of these in eBay today, so I created a saved search to notify me when one is put up for sale. Here are the steps:

• Click on "Advanced Search"
• Type in your search parameters
• Click the "Search" button
• Click "Save this search"
• In the new little window that pops up, give your search a name and specify how long you want to keep receiving emails related to this search (12 months is the maximum)
• In the little window, click "Save"

Whenever someone places a new listing in eBay that meets your criteria, you'll receive an email. There is no obligation to bid or buy.

Here's what I typed as the search criteria for this pickle fork:

old maryland (pickle, pickel, lemon, olive) fork

Here's why:

• I left off the word "engraved" because some sellers leave it out of the listing title. However, there is a pattern called "Old Maryland" so I may get some incorrect hits.
• Some sellers incorrectly identify pickle forks, calling them lemon or olive forks.
• Some sellers can't spell very well.

Send us a comment or question if you have other suggestions.

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Help Cleaning Steel Knife Blades

A reader emailed us this question:

I want to ask a question about pitting on steel blades attached to silver handles: does anyone have any suggestions how to remove it? I have a lovely 1930's set of sold silver Kings Pattern dinner knives and the steel blades are pitted. I don't particularly want to have the blades replaced. I wonder whether any of your bloggers could suggest a solution to my problem.

I've not had much luck with this issue. I would also like to find a better way of polishing out abrasions on stainless steel blades. Does anyone out there have a solution? Send us an email or post a comment to this post.

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