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tlineopen  British / Irish Sterling
tline3open  Case of the Odd Bobeche

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Author Topic:   Case of the Odd Bobeche
mdhavey

Posts: 167
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 04-17-2007 05:15 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Here's a lovely old stick by John Gould with date letter for 1742.

The bobeche, while also lovely, and seemingly right, has only a maker's mark with no other mark.

What are we to make of this? It is not unusual for bobeches to not always match their intended sticks, they do get lost, fall on the floor and are damaged and replaced., but in my experience the bobeche usually has markings of sterling, place and date and sometimes maker.

One possibility is that the bobeche mark, which doesn't seem to appear in Jackson, is that of an apprentice, either to John Gould or someone else entirely. But was it an oversight or something else that the bobeche is missing its hallmarks?

Or, any other theories?

MDH

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DB

Posts: 252
Registered: May 2006

iconnumber posted 04-17-2007 09:40 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for DB     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
This type of candlestick (1740) does not come with a bobeche - please see Peter Waldron:The Price Guide to Antique Silver, page 80, Fig. 219. Since bobeches are practical and therefore popular, a bobeche might have been fitted later.

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Dorothea Burstyn

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mdhavey

Posts: 167
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 04-17-2007 10:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
On the other hand, Clayton's Collector's Dictionary of the Silver & Gold of Great Britain shows, on pp 40-43, examples of sticks from the late 1600s through the early 1800s with bobeches (though not all). See especially fig. VIa, a similar example to the one here, from 1755, with bobeche. On the yet other hand, see Fig. IIIe, from 1738, without the bobeche.

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mdhavey

Posts: 167
Registered: Dec 2003

iconnumber posted 04-17-2007 10:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mdhavey     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Further from Clayton, p. 44, "The general use of detachable nozzles [sic] seems to be an innovation of the 1740s, perhaps because of the difficulty of cleaning wax from the more decorative examples. Such nozzles often reflect the shape of the candlestick base, but some of them are formed as expanded flowers..."

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