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Author Topic:   Gorham date mark?
outwest

Posts: 390
Registered: Nov 2005

iconnumber posted 11-03-2005 12:34 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for outwest     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
[26-0757]

ACK! I tried to edit the title because I spelled Gorham wrong, but alas it won't let me edit the title. frown

Anyway:
Hello. smile

I posted this question on another silver forum and unfortunately, no one has answered it. Perhaps nobody knows the answer? I thought I'd try here.

I have the following Gorham brush set.

There are a number of marking on the pieces. Here is the end of the clothes brush. Is that C the date mark? Is the set from 1870 then?

Here are a few other pics as https (don't want to overload you with pics wink

Also,
I have a lot of old silver as family heirlooms. I have really been getting into identifying it and am kind of excited about the things I've found out (this stuff is so cool!). Is it okay to just post some pictures to chat about or is this forum strictly for ID purposes? I kind of was looking to chat with others about old silver because no one I know in real life gives a hoot. For example: I just realized that a set of silver flatware I always assumed was plate is actually coin! It was verified by a jeweler after I became suspicious that it was way too nice and too light and sounded like silver and smelled like silver and didn't have any missing plate anywhere on any piece. I started to think that for 165 year old silver it surely would be missing a chip or two if it was plate!

I also have a 1920's art deco hammered sterling tea/coffee set. The coffee pot has rubber instead of ivory like the tea pot does. They are both dated and the tea is from 1922 and the coffee from 1928. Did something happen in there with ivory? Ah, but that's another topic.....

If you say it's okay to "chat silver" here I'd like to post those pics and chat about that stuff, too in another topic. The other silver forums I've found seem to be only for ID purposes.

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Richard Kurtzman
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Posts: 768
Registered: Aug 2000

iconnumber posted 11-03-2005 12:43 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Richard Kurtzman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Welcome. No and no. It's 1893.

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outwest

Posts: 390
Registered: Nov 2005

iconnumber posted 11-03-2005 01:04 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for outwest     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Wow! You are quick and definitive. smile

So, if it's 1893 then it should have a date mark of a, let me look, ...couple of circles sideways, right?

So, that sideways 8 at the end of the mirror is the date mark?! Whoo Hoo. I didn't even consider that mark because it looks exactly like the 8's all over the set and isn't filled in like the date code shows.

[Gorham sure marked their stuff up!]

Then, what is that C?

Here are two more pictures. One from the brush and one from the other side of the box:

Is this a mess up or is this a lion head. No one will ever know:

Is it at all possible that each piece has it's own date mark? That lion could be 1891, the sideways 8 1893, that C 1870, and the mirror I can't find anything else. ]

Nah...that doesn't make sense.

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Kimo

Posts: 1627
Registered: Mar 2003

iconnumber posted 11-03-2005 11:50 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Kimo     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Welcome to the forum! You have indeed found the right place to talk about silver. Identifications are just one small aspect of the purpose of this forum. The only really big prohibitions of this site are: 1) abusing the members on the forum by asking for information to help you sell something - if you want an appraisal and identification for this purpose then you need to go to an appraiser; and 2) being rude. People are here to share their love of silver and are generous with their knowledge for someone who shares this love of things made of silver.

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outwest

Posts: 390
Registered: Nov 2005

iconnumber posted 11-03-2005 02:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for outwest     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thank you for the welcome.

This pattern looks just like Gorhams Eglantine flatwear pattern from 1870. If the set is 1893 (and I now believe it is) then Gorham must have reused patterns for decades or it is not Eglantine. This is why I assumed the C was the date mark (1870)because Eglantine is from 1870.

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Kimo

Posts: 1627
Registered: Mar 2003

iconnumber posted 11-07-2005 11:22 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Kimo     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Gorham, like pretty much every other silver manufacturer, tend to make a pattern for a great many years after it is first introduced. Seeing a pattern still being made 20 or even 50 or more years after it was introduced should be no surprise.

Sets of silver with different date marks are not uncommonly found in the market place. I believe three of the more commonly found reasons are:

  1. silver was relatively expensive at the time and a set may have been purchased and given one piece at a time over a period of a number of years (this is still being done today);
  2. antique silver dealers or collectors throughout the decades have often put together "sets" from individual pieces they have found - therefore the dates rarely match up and sometimes the even the patterns or styles of manufacture by the same maker are not exact matches; and,
  3. stores would often not carry in stock complete sets so when a customer came into ask for one they would order the missing pieces to complete the set for sale to the buyer. Date marks of course would wind up being a couple of years off.

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outwest

Posts: 390
Registered: Nov 2005

iconnumber posted 11-07-2005 02:02 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for outwest     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

Kimo,
Thanks. That all makes perfect sense to me.

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Dale

Posts: 2132
Registered: Nov 2002

iconnumber posted 11-07-2005 11:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Dale     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks for the excellent analysis Kimo. Manufacturers did, and still do, tend to make things over very long periods of time. Which is why we frequently resort to the dippy sounding answer: between 1810 and last week. That is the way it is.

Did Gorham name its dresser ware patterns? Or were they known more generically as lined, hammared etc? I don't really know.

It is my understanding that the pieces in a dresser set changed over the years as fashion changed. Perhaps a date can be arrived at that way.

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Richard Kurtzman
Moderator

Posts: 768
Registered: Aug 2000

iconnumber posted 11-08-2005 08:08 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Richard Kurtzman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Dale, As far as I can tell dresser sets, at least at Gorham, only had pattern numbers. (The possible exception to this may have been the making of dresser ware to match certain flatware patterns. I know that this was done by Whiting.)

This practice appears to have changed in the 1920s. To quote a Gorham 1929 catalog of sterling and gold dresser sets entitled TOILET REQUISITES, "Dresser ware, being of such an intimate character, rightly deserves being named rather than numbered. We have therefore given each design a name. However, for the convenience of those who have become accustomed to numbers, we have listed a number corresponding to the name on each page."
Some of the names that they came up with: The Imagery, The Ingenue, The Interlude, Josephine, Judith, Janice, Jeanette, Justina, Juliet, Lorelei, Wall Street, Sir Lancelot, Crusader, King Arkel, Wotan....

What these names had to do with the designs, I have no idea.

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Dale

Posts: 2132
Registered: Nov 2002

iconnumber posted 11-08-2005 10:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Dale     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Somehow, I can't imagine a romantic design called 'Wall Street'. My own impression has long been that many pattern names for hollow ware were invented by department store advertising agents for their own purposes. A store pushing a contemporary line in the 30's would call a dresser set Moderne Streamlined. In another store the name would be different. This is frequently the case with plated wares.

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Richard Kurtzman
Moderator

Posts: 768
Registered: Aug 2000

iconnumber posted 11-08-2005 11:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Richard Kurtzman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The same people who brought you Wall Street also gave us Westchester, Selma, and my personal favorite, Brunhilde.

[This message has been edited by Richard Kurtzman (edited 11-08-2005).]

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