Time and time again we see genuine inquiries posted on this forum with basic information which could and likely would lead to a speedy and useful response edited out.
So may I offer some guidelines to those posting?
- Read the guidelines.
- Post pictures of the entire object not a tiny portion of it showing some sort of markings.
- Make sure when your picture is enlarged it remains clear. Fuzzy pictures lead to fuzzy answers.
- If you know where you got the item, tell us. And don’t just say “purloined from granny’s attic after she changed her will and cut me out of it.” Tell us where she used to collect stuff and what her tastes were. It may be entirely irrelevant but at least we will be entertained.
- If there are other markings; some dubious ancestor has been inscribing initials or crests all over it, show that too.
- If you are going to try and grab a free valuation which you think you might use to persuade some insurer to pay out on when you “lose” it, save yourself the trouble. We are mostly amateurs, admittedly amateurs who probably do more research than most professionals, still just that, and insurance company’s prefer you to have paid out to have a valuation.
- Try and vary our monotonous diet of silver plate. We will answer your questions on it sometimes even correctly, but we really don’t love electro-plate. See if you can find a decent piece of provincial British or American silver we can get our teeth into. Most of the provincial guilds had terrible record keeping which makes the hunt all the more fun.
- If the item belongs a a third party, someone other than your good self, it’s coming up for auction or it’s listed elsewhere on the 'net or even appears as an analogue reproduction in a book or catalogue pdf, send the link to that with your inquiry. It’s going to show up on searches anyway.
- In the same vein as #8 if you are checking up on auctioneers’ descriptions which you think are wrong, you are almost certainly right. Auctioneers, unless they are specialist silver sellers, rely on assignor information which is almost always very old and subsequent work, often by one of the contributors to this forum has updated (to use a neutral term).
- Having got an answer to a simple question, presume that is the beginning not the end of your data hunt and when you wander into a library or chat up a museum docent and get further and better information let us know. If we are still alive we will be interested. If not less so but others might be.