Silver & Silver-plated items

Sworders’ Spring Country House sale in Stansted Mountfitchet on April 24 included a remarkable collection of pieces designed by Augustus Pugin for his own Ramsgate home.

This silver inkstand made by William Robb of Ballater, assayed in Edinburgh in 1910, is one of ten items by the silversmith to be included at Batemans sale on May 5 in Stamford, Lincolnshire.

THE first sale at new premises for Ipswich auctioneers Lockdales, now at the former officers’ barracks in Martlesham Heath, included two pieces of silver and enamel ware of the type associated with the Solvychegodsk region.

THE two Tiffany works of art that gave strong performances within days of each other in recent US sales were not the usual lamps, glassware or table silver.

SOTHEBY’S Paris have announced that they have negotiated a private treaty sale to the Louvre for an undisclosed sum of a pair of silver tureens, covers, liners and stands by the French goldsmith Robert-Joseph Auguste.

ONLY two Scottish 17th century lace-back spoons are recorded by the National Museum of Scotland so this example offered by Dreweatts at Donnington Priory was quite a rarity.

It may look like a textbook early 19th century silver teaset, but this unprepossessing three-piece service seen at Tennants of Leyburn, North Yorkshire on November 17-19 carried marks later identified as those of the early Australian silversmith Alexander Dick (c.1791-1843).

RAMRAIDERS have smashed their way into the Court Barn Museum, home to the Guild of Handicrafts collection, and stolen unique pieces of silver.

The latest sale of Scottish silver at Lyon & Turnbull included a number of early Edinburgh hollowares, including this pair of James VI (I of England) communion cups.

ICONIC is the only word to describe two gold medals offered at a recent sale by Noble Numismatics of Melbourne, Australia.

THIS fine set of three George II rococo casters by Eliza Godfrey, London 1752 sold for £66,000 at Henry Adams of Chichester on July 14.

HASLEMERE in Surrey has fallen victim to a gang targeting silver for melt, two weeks after thieves stole a rhino head from the town’s museum.

HUGE quantities of antique silver and gold were scrapped last week as precious metal prices hit record highs.

THE highest bullion prices for a generation are helping the cause of much general silver at auction, but the real strength of the market is for the better-quality smallwork where weight counts for nought.

THEY may look plain and simple, but this pair of silver wall-hanging candle scones had private and trade bidders clamouring to buy when they came up for sale last week at Colchester auction rooms Reeman Dansie.

A SET of four George II silver salts by the celebrated Huguenot silversmith Paul de Lamerie (1688-1751) sold for a double-estimate £19,000 at Hansons' latest sale at the Mackworth Hotel in Derby.

AN interest in wine and a holiday to Britain 49 years ago led New Englanders Alden and Connie Lank to their first silver wine labels.

A COLLECTION of 85 bosuns’ calls was among items stolen from a home in Milan in early August. Most of the calls were British, but there were also examples from the USA, Italy, China and India.

THIEVES have stolen a safe containing £25,000 worth of silver from a church in Woodmangreen, just north of Midhurst, Sussex.

PURITAN spoons are not uncommon survivors in English silver but, for reasons still largely unknown, Scottish examples are very rare. To date, only nine hallmarked or provincial examples are known.