Archibald Knox Tudric muffin dish

By Sherri Hall-Wilcox

The piece pictured above is a pewter muffin dish (valued, designed by Archibald Knox (British, 1864-1933) for Liberty & Co., circa 1901-05 as part of its “Tudric” line. Like most pieces made during this period, it is in the Art Nouveau style. Knox was born in Cronkbourne Village, Tromode, Isle of Man, on April 9th, 1864.

Knox took a winding path to end up as a designer whose pieces are now sought by collectors.

Knox’s early education took place at Douglas Grammar School and Douglas School of Art between 1878 and 1883. It appears it was here that his first interest in Celtic design took root, and later became his signature design form. Knox taught at the school from 1884-1888. In 1897, Knox moved on to become a teacher at the Redhill School of Art, whose headmaster, A.J. Collister, was a close friend. In 1899 Knox would follow Collister to the Kingston School of Art and later to the Wimbledon Art School in 1906.

It was during this period during the turn of the 19th century that he became involved with the studios of Christopher Dresser, famous for silverware, ceramics and glass and Liberty & Co. of London. Liberty & Co. was one of the leading producers of Art Nouveau decorative arts items, and it while he was here when Knox began designing pieces for which he is most famous: creating items for their Cymric line of silver (1899) and their “Tudric” line of pewter (1902). It is unknown just how many pieces he designed for Liberty, as much of the company’s records were destroyed by fire during World War II.

In 1912 Knox left Britain, seeking employment in the United States, returning to the Isle of Man in 1913, just before the outbreak of World War One. During the war (1914-1918), he worked as a censor in an alien detention camp on the Isle of Man, returning to teaching after the war at a number of schools on the island. He died from sudden heart failure on Feb. 22, 1933 and was buried in Braddan Cemetery.

In general, the term Sterling Silver is meant to distinguish items that are composed of mostly solid silver as opposed to Silver-Plated that have only a thin surface layer of silver. However, there are several other distinctions, some using terms that can be confusing and often lead to a misunderstanding of an item’s composition and hence its value.

One of the most important metallurgical terms that are also used in Antique and Modern Silver are the words ALLOY and PLATED. Alloy refers to a composite metal that consists of two or more distinct pure metals that are fused together so as to make them inseparable by mechanical means. Plated on the other hand, refers to metals that have a layer deposited and adhered to a Base Metal to give it the appearance that the entire item is made of the same material used in its Plating. The base metal for most antique Silver items in today’s market is usually Copper, Nickel Silver, Stainless Steel, Brass, or Bronze.

Sterling Silver is actually an Alloy. Because silver is soft in its purest form, Silversmiths mix silver with copper to make it harder and more durable. Additionally, copper gives the resulting alloy a nicer sheen and is more appealing. This is how the Fineness Hallmarks used on silver have come to have meaning and each country considers certain levels as minimum standards (some changed over time) and are usually enforced when on Jewelry and other Silver items. For example, in the United States the first legal Sterling Silver standard was introduced by Charles Tiffany in 1852 and was soon adopted by the US Federal Government as 0.921 parts of Silver and 0.079 parts of Copper. In the United Kingdom, the Sterling Standard was established much earlier, in 1238 (enforced after 1300), and refers to a minimum of 0.925 parts of Silver and 0.075 parts of Copper. Items made of at least 99% pure silver are usually referred to as Fine Silver. In America, Coin Silver refers to a minimum of 90% silver content.

It is interesting to note that, in spite of its name, Nickel Silver does NOT contain any silver. It is actually an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc in varying proportions, usually 2:1:1 or 3:1:1. It is similar to the Chinese “Paktong” as imported to Europe prior to the 19^th century and until Nickel was more readily available from various Colonies. In the west, it was developed first in Saxe-Meiningen, Germany, in 1824, hence its other name as German Silver. Since then, Nickel Silver is used extensively as a Base Metal on Silver-Plated items hence the common abbreviation EPNS (Electro Plated Nickel Silver) or EPGS (Electro Plated German Silver).

Which brings us to Silver Plating…

A very successful method of Silver Plating was Sheffield Plate, which although already known since antiquity, was formally patented for industrial use by Thomas Bolsover of Sheffield in 1742. The initial name for this method was Copper Rolled Plate, which refers to the basic technique employed at the time of rolling a layer of Silver onto a layer of Copper, sometimes on both sides. This produced a very compact and large silver sheet, usually rolled in ingots, that was still thin enough to be malleable for the Silversmith when forming intricate designs. The term Sheffield Plate became popular ca 1770s and was later referred to as Old Sheffield Plate to distinguish it from other methods developed after 1830s. Initially, the majority of Sheffield plated items had the base metal covered on the external side only (Single Plated) whereas the other side was covered with Tin. However, market demand for Double Plated items, especially on hollowware was soon evident and most specimens surviving today as Antique Sheffield Plate are double plated.

Because of repeated increases of taxation on Solid or Sterling Silver during the period between 1784 to 1815, other promising methods of Silver Plating were soon developed that were less expensive and easier to replicate in industrial quantities. Most of these techniques employed the use of fine and very thin layers of Silver, sometimes referred to as Silver Leaf, that were pressed against the base metal 3-5 layers at a time and then heated and burnished to a smooth finish. Since it took a total of 40 or 60 Silver Leaf layers to get each item ready, this method was still laborious and expensive. This method is now known as French Plating because it was mostly popular amongst French platers during the 18thC. Other similar forms of Silver Plating were also developed around the same time, including Roberts Plate ca 1830, British Plate ca 1835, and Merry Plate in 1936.

However, the most important change in Silver Plating came about with the invention of Electro Plating, a method that simply requires placing the item to be plated along with a small ingot of solid silver in a bath of mild acid and applying electric current. This set-up enabled an evenly uniform deposit of solid silver on the plated item, and varying the current and time during the process, allowed for very precise control in the thickness of the plated silver. Electro Plating was first discovered by John Wright of Birmingham in 1840, but was officially patented by Elkington & Co. around the same time. It has since been in extensive use and has remained the dominant way of Plating Silver to this day. Most Electro-Plated wares have a plating thickness of about 3-30 microns; Flashed or Silver-Wash wares have less then 3 microns.

Silver plated items were not required to have hallmarks by law. However, many companies used their own logos and often included the type of Plating that was used on each piece, usually as initials EPS, EPNS etc. This practice eventually became the norm and now most Silver-Plated items found in the market are marked with their respective maker’s trademarks. Unfortunately, some companies intentionally used marks that were very similar to true Sterling Silver Hallmarks in order to gain market acceptance at the time, but this was only during a very brief early period since authorities and other merchants whose marks were imitated, prosecuted this use.

Finally some other terms related to Silver include:

Standard Silver Plate: The equivalent of using 2 troy ounces of Pure Silver for every 144 Silver spoons being ElectroPlated.

Quadruple Plate: The use of 4 times the Standard electroplating amount of Pure Silver, i.e. 8 oz for every 144 silver spoons

Britannia Silver: A Sterling Silver alloy of 0.9584 Pure Silver Fineness

90g or 90G or G90 or 90 or Hard Plating: Refers to Elctro-Plating of over 30 microns thickness; found mostly on German Cutlery & Utilitarian Flatware ca 1920s onwards.

Alex and Elizabeth are WorthPoint Worthologists.

The title of this blog is the wonderful and strangely upbeat phrase embossed around the pedestal base of this whimsical little bottle…or is it a salt/pepper shaker. Actually, the “em-bossing” is “de-bossed” or indented into the glass instead of raised relief like typical bottle embossing.

The Billiken, as one can see from the images, is a little fat, naked guy sitting on his behind with this devilish grin and and both eyes shut tightly. Sort of a happy Budda figure, though with no apparent religious overtones. It does make one happy just gazing upon this little elf. See Image #1 above which shows an example that still retains some of the gold highlight paint.

The following is from Wikipedia on the subject:

“The Billiken was a charm doll created by an American art teacher and illustrator, Ms. Florence Pretz of Kansas City, Missouri, who is said to have seen the mysterious figure in a dream. In 1908 she patented the Billiken who was elf-like with pointed ears, a mischievous smile, and a tuft a hair on his pointed head. His arms were short and he was generally sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him. The Billiken was auspiciously named after the newly elected President of the United States, William Howard Taft. (The manufacturer of the dolls, Horsman Dolls, Inc., had earlier enjoyed success with the Teddy Bear: a toy named after the previous president, Theodore Roosevelt.) The Billiken was one of the first copyrighted dolls and the first likenesses of the Billiken, banks and statues, were produced in 1909. After a few brief years of popularity, like many other fad toys, the Billiken faded into obscurity.“

One question I’ve always had is whether these are bottles – they are often referred to as a candy bottle (holding those little, hard candies of yesteryear) – or part of a salt/pepper shaker set (and outside my bottle genre).

The evidence for it being a salt shaker is that the cap of most of them – including the pictured example which is almost certainly original as I’ve seen the same exact cap on many specimens – has the perfunctory holes in it for dispensing a product, i.e., salt and/or pepper. Image #2 above shows the cap with the shaker holes in it. This type cap is seen on a majority of Billiken bottles in my experience. Image #3 shows a colorless (clear) example of the bottle which also has a perforated cap (not showing in image).

However, there are a few bottles around that have caps without holes; are these the candy bottles? Image #4 above shows one with a solid silver cap which may – or may not – be original. This particular example was in the famed and spectacular Judge Blaske collection of bottles & flasks sold off in 1983. The auction catalog noted that the cap may or may not have been original – a reflection of the fact that most of these bottles are seen with the perforated cap.

If any viewers of this blog have any additional information on the subject, I would love to hear about it. The bottom line is probably that these bottles were likely used for both salt/pepper shakers and as candy (or whatever) bottles, though most were used for the former purpose. Anyway you “shake it” these are attractive and engaging bottles…and highly collectible.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiken

http://www.sha.org/bottle/index.htm

http://www.historicbottles.com/billiken1908patent.pdf (Link to original patent)

Hello:

The Estate has, items in very good condition, with minor distress: H & C Bavaria Plates (90pcs), Crooksville China floral plates (5 pcs), Antique Doernbecher Dbl. Bed set with Lead Mirror/Vanity, Chifforette, Vintage L.A. Furniture 1970s solid wood Dbl. Bed set, Remembrance & Queen Bess Silverware and Silver plated cutlery (50 pcs).

Collectibles: Presitige plates by Style House, 1968 (46 pcs), many 8 track tapes, VHS, Glass/Vinyl Records.

Vintage: 1960-70s electronics, tools, glass and deco items.

Preview at http://www.a-muse9.com/ , 360-750-1868, danielle98661 [at] netzero [dot] net or leave msg. 360-696-4838, sandrachampie [at] msn [dot] com .
Please contact us about possible value of items or purchase of them. Sandra Champie

So Many Plates! Are They Worth Anything?

Plates, plates, and more plates. In fact, I get tired of looking at plates at every sale I attend. But should I? Is it simply that seeing so many worthless plates have jaded me? I asked myself these questions and then decided to do a little research to get some answers. After having done that, I see that by having such a negative opinion of the “lowly” plate and not even stopping to examine them at the many sales I have attended, I have probably passed up some real treasures in my hunt. Shame on me. I now have a different perspective.

Yes, I have found a few plates worth mentioning, but very few. One worth bringing up is the Saturday Evening Girls plate that I discussed in the book “31 Steps to Your Millions in Antiques and Collectibles.” I found one of these plates as I was on my way to Lake Geneva one Father’s Day, and I paid twenty-five cents for it at a yard sale. The one I found in a stack of plates on the way to Lake Geneva for Fathers Day. Twenty-five cents didn’t seem like much of an investment, so I bought it. It darn well made me happy when it sold for over $300. And now that I think about it, there was the set of fourteen plates I purchased for $150 and soon sold them for over $$1,200. And, wait a second. It just hit me that I did buy a Meissen plate for around $50 and sold it for over $500. Oh, and now this calendar plate just flashed through my mind. The one I bought for $5 and sold for $500. Maybe I like plates a lot more than I thought I did.

You see, this business is like hunting for a needle in a hay stack, but when you find the needle, all the effort becomes worth the hunt. Now that I’ve started back down that road that I’ve traveled, I bet I can remember several other stories of finding different types of plates that have proved to me excellent finds. The oyster plates I bought for $25 that I sold for $375 comes to mind. That’s not so bad. If I totaled up all the money I’ve made from plates, how dare I look down my nose on them. When I took out my latest Kovels Price Guide to look through some examples, I was totally surprised to see what some of these plates were now selling for.

$4,950 for a 1907 calendar plate, (Bristol Steel Fishing Rods, Outdoor Camping Scene advertising plate.) A 1922 Edison Mazda, Egypt, Maxwell Parrish plate for $4,510. I have to admit, this is not bad for one plate. And then there were the RS Prussia and flow blue plates that still bring in top dollar. Yes, this is still an area that can bring us the type of return on our money that we are looking for, because so many people today look on these items as I did , “ the lowly plate.”

Learn more about buying and selling antiques at www.31corp.com

thanks for any help I can get,
Elizabeth
eschmi25 [at] gmail [dot] com