posted 02-19-2005 04:22 AM            

I recently had the opportunity to acquire an extremely rare tankard by William Rouse, c.1660, and although the opportunity has now passed, the experience left me with questions someone here may be able to help with.

I am from UK and usually collect English, Continental and sometimes Chinese items - I know very little about American silver. This piece was offered by one of London's most respected silver dealers, recently retired, from his private collection, and he had acquired it himself about 40 years ago. The marks were accurate according to Ensko's, and it looked absolutely genuine - rather rough as one might expect, but nothing about it looked suspicious.

However, he told me he had consigned it to Sotheby's London, who had passed it on to New York, and they had declined to offer it in auction and returned it but would not give an explanation. I managed to speak to the Sotheby's people who had dealt with this, and while the London branch thought it was fine Sotheby's NY would only say they returned it as they were 'not comfortable with it, considering their standards of guarantee'. They would not elaborate. I had the feeling they felt it hard to believe something as rare as this would turn up out of the blue when its existence was not known about previously.

Since there was apparently some doubt as to its authenticity, albeit unspecified, I dropped it. But I wondered if there was something else I could have done in this circumstance. If it was an English piece I would simply take it to Goldsmith's Hall and they would give an adjudication, and there would be no more argument about it. But what do you do in such an instance with an early American piece? Could it have been taken to a museum or something to get it authenticated, or at least to get a proper opinion that says more than 'not comfortable with it'?