When's a Fake actually sought after?

British Silver Reading Silver Hallmarks
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Wilkens Auctioneers, Toronto were recently asked to dispose of a large quantity of antique silver from a well-known local interior designer’s collection.

These late 19th century salts and peppers with cranberry glass linings were among the offerings.

Wilkens is very fortunate to have the talents of a top Nova Scotia silversmith cum Auctioneer, to assist in valuation and appraisal.

Ross Morrow is not only a man with an excellent eye for the unusual but a talented silversmith in his own right.

So sussing out this late 19th century design and method of creation was not consistent with the early 19th century hallmarks and punch mark of Thomas Wallis II was all in a day’s work.

What was more mind stretching was what to do with it? In the UK its sale would have been in defiance of the legislation governing silver sales even with a full declaration as to its spurious origin but in Canada all we have is the requirements of consumer legislation’s full and fair disclosure.

So, to illustrate with an ad absurdum argument a simple point: if I take a photo of a fine mansion and list the photo for sale for $5 million and clearly state its just a picture and the only good news is the heating bills will be manageable and someone pays me the cash and they are legally competent, all is fair and title of the photo passes. All very Banksy.

This is exactly what happened. The auctioneer labeled it as a fake even told us who probably created it-- in his opinion the workshop of Twinam and Lyon —and it sold at a modest premium over melt.

Here’s a contemporary pamphlet by the Guild on the entire subject:

And here’s the current view of the Goldsmiths:

Now we do not know who bought these four items, how they escaped the seizures of similar spurious items by police back in the day and if the consignor, now deceased, or his estate knew what he was asking the Canadian auctioneer to sell.

For all we know the items may have been bought by a thoroughly scrupulous smith who, having paid for it, promptly melted it down and proposes to make an honest 21st century item out of the metal — presuming it is sterling, we don’t know that either – as in Canada we are not required to call un-assayed material “white metal” and can use the rather vague nomenclature “silver”.

It would be interesting to solicit the views of collectors as to if the perfectly legal under local rules sale should have proceeded in the manner it did, if any steps need to be taken to ensure that if the items are not melted down they are dealt with in some manner to prevent future sales by possibly less scrupulous or knowledgeable auctioneers and if faked antique silver should be treated any differently from dubious Holbeins which get labeled “school of” or " after" or even “from the studio of” and also exchange at, if not a King’s ransom, at least that of a minor princess hanging about in rented LA digs.

CRWW

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A couple of thoughts. First, a rather sad thought that antique silver in the late 19th century was collectible enough that forgers would risk stiff fines and prison sentences for forging such small beer items that would never be worth the trouble nowadays, indicating the low regard most have for things historic and beautiful. Second, that historic forgeries can and should have a place in collections for those that are interested in the history. I much prefer my forged 1821 crowns (the English coin, not the headware that the duchess of sussex so covets) with the silvering peeling off and the suspicion that whoever forged it probably swung for his (or her, viz the Cragg Vale forgers who almost completely destabilized the English monetary system in the late 18th c) crimes to the real thing, more valuable but minted in the hundreds of thousands. Third, they look expertly done, and the peppers sure look like Wallis II, and for just above melt with that glorious cranberry glass insert, I’d love to have 'em. But it is a serious concern that someone could flip them on ebay or whatever as the genuine article and make a small profit. So maybe a compromise? Rather than the draconian British rules, maybe we could add another small mark to things like this: an R in a shield cartouche to indicate this is a reproduction and that the hallmarks are for decoration purposes only. Just a thought (or four).

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The situation gets even more complicated, however. The problem with a lot of eBay listings is that the sellers simply have no idea what they’re selling, and are just winging it. That’s less likely to happen with reputable auction houses, but the “auctioneers” who are, in fact, just aggregators, and have never laid eyes on the things they’re flogging, are no better than the confused eBay listers. :wink:

I’ve warned a couple of eBay listers that they’re peddling fakes, but they ignore me.

By contrast, a local estate auction place was selling a beautifully carved mahogany Georgian armchair. Just one problem with it. My father ran the Manhattan showroom of the furniture company that had, among other things, the licenses to produce “blessed” Colonial Williamsburg® and Historic Newport® reproductions, and I spotted this chair from a mile off as a reproduction from about 1970. Superbly made, and hand-carved, but less than a century old. I even remembered the catalog number! I warned the auction house, telling them that what they had on their hands was a Kittinger U583. There’s a pair of them in the White House, though by now Trump has probably had them covered with fake gilding. In any event, the auction house promptly revised the listing. :slight_smile:

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Thank you for your interesting comments. The auction appraiser is quite clear the items were made using a system not employed in1804 and as a silversmith himself I don’t doubt his opinion.

If you google search the image you will discover who in fact made them and where. He sold them to three major retailers.

Mr Twinam will likely have bought the unstamped items off the manufacturer and applied his own punches. The glass is modern quite different in appearance from anything that might have been produced at the end of the 18th century by Ravenscroft or Vauxhall or even out of Bristol where cobalt found a use long before car batteries needed it. The good news is yes it almost certainly is at least .900 and likely .925.

The rules protecting British Silver are largely responsible for the premium attached to it protecting the reputation of the craftsman and those families who invested in it. In fact it was used as a system of both displaying and storing wealth. Banking and Bling. So yes, Draconian perhaps but necessary.

CRWW

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If you spot a misrepresentation on ebay let the seller know and provide him with a copy of the actual mark. Almost always listers respond with gratitude and alacrity. If you are uncertain, check with Phil and he will help.

I enjoyed you story about furniture. Forty years ago I rebuilt a bookcase from scrap and used it in a library of a house. When I sold the house I sold the bookcase . Thirty years later it turned up in a rather smart shop with a George II attribution and a $10,000 price on it. I pulled out the bottom drawer and showed the store owner my signature on it and the date of manufacture. The item disappeared from the show room the next day. I should have kept my mouth shut, I could have my own directory by now!

With silver it usually works in reverse. Pull the bottom wood plates off something sold as stuffed 19th century 'sticks and discover a 1721 date, give a bit of a rub to a Russian samovar and discover William Holmes is the maker in 1760. I guess that why silver has maintained it price and my poor old cabinet hasn’t or shouldn’t have.

Someone once pointed out to me in the time of Chippendale the population of the UK was only about 6.6 million and less than two percent of them had any furniture at all – furniture then being made by architects as part of the house fittings – So altogether there might ever have been 120,000 dining room tables ever made in the UK but most would have been crude trestle and almost all of those made by craftsmen have been lost or destroyed so there really should only be 15,000 dining room tables altogether. When furniture had value the trade was selling that number globally every year.

But if you can find the genuine article, they are selling for less than the price quarter sawn mahogany would cost today. Rosewood – cocabolo if you are in Nicaragua cost US$130,000 per tree standing and then you have to get special permission to cut it down. Typically another $10,000. The timber is used for guitar keyboards but ebony furniture still shows up priced less than the materials it is made of. Unfortunately this means fine 18th and 19th. century furniture made of it is getting bought and broken up.

I have a hunt table from mahogany made of three full planks. The table is 13 feet long so the size of that tree was massive. These trees just don’t exist today and probably never will again. Well not for 400 years which is about how long they need to get girth necessary to provide a 13 ft plank.

CRWW

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I didn’t mean to suggest that there is any doubt that the pieces are forgeries and are not made by Thomas Wallis II. And while I agree that the rules are in place to protect the integrity of British silver which is vital, according to British law these forgeries would have to be destroyed which in my mind is a pity as they were still made over 125 years ago, do have antique late victorian cranberry glass in them and are fascinating pieces of evidence of a fairly major crime that would have intrigued the fictional Holmes himself. Especially since the 1804 punch was one the peelers found after searching Twinham’s residence and was entered into evidence. The provenance of these pieces is truly fascinating and I would love to have them. But I do acknowledge the problem. For me, the fun would be pulling them out at a dinner party and boring my guests with the tale of crime and larceny as they salted their boeuf bourgignon from these very vessels, but upon my demise as my heirs dispose of my various eccentric collections, this may well get resold as the genuine article at a similar online auction without the benefit perhaps of someone as sharp eyed as Mr. Morrow. Which is why I suggest separate punches to go alongside the fraudulent ones - one as a modern assay mark to confirm it is sterling and another to indicate it is a fraudulent copy of the work indicated by the fake hallmarks. That way chaps like me with a larcenous bent can still own antique crime curios that still have practical applications at the dining table. That said reading the attached case study, it’s alarming just how big a business forged pieces with fake 18th hallmarks seems to have been in the late 1800s. Makes me relieved I can’t afford Paul Storr stuffing spoons or I’d be left wondering… But thank you Mr. Wilson for posing such interesting questions.

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Red or cranberry glass is created by adding copper, tin, and lead, along with a reducing agent, to a molten glass batch. The copper is oxidized during the melting process, and the colour of the glass is determined by the concentration of copper oxide and the presence of other elements like tin and lead.

In Toronto we are fortunate to have a number of glaziers still practicing this ancient art.

As I said in my original comments and having looked at the items physically, I am clear the inserts are modern, rather than made 135 years ago and certainly not made in 1804.

“The glass is… quite different in appearance from anything that might have been produced at the end of the 18th century by Ravenscroft or Vauxhall or even out of Bristol where cobalt found a use long before car batteries needed it.”

As one piece of glass is broken, the good news is it is easy to replace and probably with something that fits better than the two inserts one of which rises well above the metal indicating it is “off the peg” to use a tailoring term for a cheap suit.

CRWW

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I must have misunderstood your original post as I thought the glass inserts were part of the 1899 forgery. Which I suppose makes it a forgery upon a forgery. Maybe Peter Ashley Russell was looking to make a few bob after his prison sentence and stuck in some inserts he had lying around?

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Very few of 18th century glass inserts survive and the modern replacements are fairly easily available. Many glass inserts are made for items that would never have had them in the first place and were made in a time when glass was very expensive.

The alternative, especially with salts and their spoons, is gilt work. Before electro-plating it was applied using a mercury-lost system which was desperately dangerous for silversmiths and goes a long way to explaining why so many of them had such short lives even by i8th century standards. Charles Hougham, Solomon’s brother, was one victim we know of from medical records.

The difference between modern glass and the old sodium and other glass is fairly obvious. Additionally the older glass was often bright cut especially where the bottom was flat and the silver bottoms, especially of mustards, was open. CRWW