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Author Topic:   Interesting Gorham Mark
mdhavey

Posts: 164
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 09-21-2008 07:30 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Here's a beautiful Gorham plate, one of a set of ten. On the back is GORHAM MFG. CO., the word STERLING, and this mark. It looks a bit like the Whiting lion without the W in the shield. Any other possibilities come to mind?

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mdhavey

Posts: 164
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 09-21-2008 07:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I should have added that each one is just shy of 7" in diameter.

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dragonflywink

Posts: 993
Registered: Dec 2002

iconnumber posted 09-21-2008 08:02 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for dragonflywink     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Odd, looks like a Redlich mark.

~Cheryl

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mdhavey

Posts: 164
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 09-21-2008 08:12 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Certainly does, Cheryl. I wonder if Adolph Ludwig used this mark before he started Redlich. Perhaps he did contract work for Gorham (and Shiebler).

Coincidentally, or not so, the Gorham marks (lion, anchor, G) are not present, just the name.

All a bit odd, as you say.

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Richard Kurtzman
Moderator

Posts: 768
Registered: Aug 2000

iconnumber posted 09-22-2008 11:23 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Richard Kurtzman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Gorham had several retail outlets where they sold pieces by other makers in addition to their own.
This dish, by Redlich, appears to be such a piece.

[This message has been edited by Richard Kurtzman (edited 09-23-2008).]

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mdhavey

Posts: 164
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 09-22-2008 12:08 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Richard, do you know when Gorham had their retail stores?

I should add, this Redlich mark is very, very small, less than 1/8" across.

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Richard Kurtzman
Moderator

Posts: 768
Registered: Aug 2000

iconnumber posted 09-23-2008 01:23 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Richard Kurtzman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
This piece would have to come from the NY store. Gorham had outlets in NYC, Chicago and SF. The Gorham retail store was in NYC. They also owned a large part of the Chicago retailer Spaulding & Co.

Spaulding also had a store in Paris.
Gorham opened an outlet in London and started making silver in England.

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doc

Posts: 728
Registered: Jul 2003

iconnumber posted 09-24-2008 11:26 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for doc     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I have seen a reference to Gorham's New York store as having been open from about 1890 to 1920.

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mdhavey

Posts: 164
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 09-24-2008 04:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I'm assuming it had to come from the New York store because Redlich was a NYC manufacturer...?

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mdhavey

Posts: 164
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 09-24-2008 04:47 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Answered my own question:

"in 1905 Gorham opened a retail outlet on Fifth Avenue in New York City that they had commissioned from renowned architect Stanford White..."

collectics.com/education_gorham.html

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mdhavey

Posts: 164
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 09-24-2008 05:03 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
A bit more, from a very interesting article in the New York Times, Oct. 22, 2000:

In 1903 both Gorham and Tiffany -- which had been on Union Square -- began work on new buildings on Fifth Avenue, Tiffany at the southeast corner of 37th Street and Gorham at the southwest corner of 36th.

In September 1905 the two companies opened their new buildings within days of each other. Both were designed by Stanford White, but in very different modes. Tiffany's (which still stands) was rich and heavily modeled, patterned after the 16th-century Palazzo Grimani in Venice. The new Gorham Building was more restrained but just as elegant, following general sources of the Florentine renaissance.

'Compared to the Gorham Building, the Tiffany Building is by way of being frivolous,' Architectural Record said in 1907.

Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, whose husband, Harry, shot and killed Stanford White, Nesbit's former lover, in 1906 in a jealous rage, purchased more than $2,000 in silver on credit in the same year and gave it away as presents. When Gorham sued her for payment in 1913, she said she had less than $250 to her name.

Gorham moved out of its building in the early 1920's, to 576 Fifth Avenue, and was succeeded by Russek's, a women's clothing store.

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Richard Kurtzman
Moderator

Posts: 768
Registered: Aug 2000

iconnumber posted 09-25-2008 03:56 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Richard Kurtzman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The Gorham Bldg. B'way & 19th St. built 1884.



The Gorham Bldg. Fifth Ave. & 36th St. built 1904.



The Tiffany Bldg. Fifth Ave. & 37th St. built 1904.

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mdhavey

Posts: 164
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 09-25-2008 04:13 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Anyone have a picture of what it looks like now, just for comparison's sake? Or, if any of our NYC folks happens down 5th with a camera phone...

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mdhavey

Posts: 164
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 09-26-2008 12:32 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
A remarkable commentary on contemporary society's carelessness and lack of a sense of beauty or design:

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Paul Lemieux

Posts: 1792
Registered: Apr 2000

iconnumber posted 02-15-2009 04:45 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Paul Lemieux     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It's now behind some sort of scaffolding (hopefully just for cleaning not further renovations) and kind of hard to see but here is the Gorham Building on B'way & 19, built in 1884. Some of the cool original architectural elements are obviously missing, such as the tower at the top and the circular windows running up the corner.

Then:

Now:

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Scott Martin
Forum Master

Posts: 11520
Registered: Apr 93

iconnumber posted 08-09-2018 05:28 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Scott Martin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Tiffany interior
5th Ave. & 37th St
NY NY
c.1910

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vathek

Posts: 966
Registered: Jun 99

iconnumber posted 08-10-2018 08:30 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for vathek     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
These photos bear witness to the standing of silverware manufacture at a previous time in history.
There is a sense of elegance and a place in society that is gone now.

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