The New New Year

I thought if I decided to write only when I had something to say it would free me up.  All it did was make me lazy!  Bad, bad, bad Bunny!

So I decided to write once a week.  Period.  And if I've found no great deals or if I've been too busy writing books or teaching test prep (or sick, as I was yesterday) then I will ... improvise.  Let's face it, I vowed this wouldn't just be about the lastest amazing deal (though that's my rush) but about dreaming about future amazing things, the ones I would love to find, and helping others do the same.  Imagine it and make it real, right?  Today's the day, right?  Doesn't happen by accident!

Remember, I don't believe in luck; I believe in putting myself in the way of anything that might fall into my lap.  That takes a lot of work.  Some of it is hitting thrifts and yard sales and pawn shops ad nauseum.  But most of it, the biggest and most time-consuming part, is educating my eye by 1) reading everything I can on anything that might appeal to me, 2) looking stuff up (Replacements, eBay) to see what things are actually selling for, and 3) listening to everyone.

Take silverplate, for instance.

If you're like me, when you think silverplate you think of that coffeepot your mother only used when she had the Bridge Club over, or the big box your parents had in the dining room, the one lined with felt, the one they opened only at holidays.  And while you have great memories of the occasion (other than the whole rub-with-stinky-crap-and-turn-your-fingers-black thing before the big meal), and you love to use it in your own house to recreate those memories, chances are when you decided to find out how much it's worth so you can insure it properly you found out that your Ikea nightstand is worth more, and so you lump all silverplate into the bedroom-in-a-box category and write it off completely.

And you should - if you have the most popular pattern in the most popular era of the most affordable and popular dress-up thing from our parents' era.  But silverplate goes back more than a hundred years before that ...

We all know that sterling has been the status flatware for centuries, so, of course, only the wealthy could afford it.  In the mid-1800's, several people figured out that if they mixed silver with a bunch of other chemicals into a solution, dunked a metal object connected to an electrical source (remember electricity as a flowing thing instead of a lightning thing was new then) into that solution, and turned on the juice, then that object would attract and hold onto all those lovely little silver particles.  For a fraction of the cost of sterling, something could have the look and feel of silver because it was silver.  Voila!  Instant middle-class status symbol.  And, of course, instant flood on the market.  People were silverplating anything and everything to give it that high-end look.

That's where the secret comes in, however:  it all depends on what was plated ... and who did the plating.

Good craftsmanship is good craftmanship, and good names are good names.  As it turns out, silverplate is one of those hidden treasures, simply because there's so much junk out there.  I spoke with at least half-a-dozen people this month who would no more buy a piece of silverplate than try to fly to the moon on a boat, and yet a quick search on eBay showed me this, and this, and this!  Of course (big surprise) the name is the big deal.  Tiffany & Co, Christofle, Georg Jensen, all of these people made silver and silverplate, and are top of their line no matter what the line is.  But my own personal story is this one:

These were some silverplate I found a couple of years ago in a thrift store that had flatware in big plastic storage containers, the kind of tubs you store your athletic equipment in.  Huge.  The sign said "25 cents each," and it was 25% off day.  I found the picked up the first piece because it was so unusual.  I sat down on the concrete floor and went through both bins because I was curious.  And I walked out with them because it was cheap, and I was still at that I'll-try-anything stage (especially when it cost me about ... $2?).  I saw the "1847 Rogers Bros" mark, researched the pattern ("Columbia"), and went to eBay to see what was selling.  Respectable, I thought, at $1 or $2 each piece (but not by itself ... shipping, you know).

Then I realized they didn't look quite ... right.  Mine were more three-dimensional.  I continued to scroll down until I saw a set that looked better, six Columbia "hollow handle" knives, still with two days to go, and up to ... 55 cents?  No, that was dollars!  And it wasn't even done yet!

Well, I got those pieces out and scrutinized.  I'd already learned that if a piece of glass or pottery is chipped its value drops like panties in Mad Men so I figured the same thing would happen when plating was rubbed away.  It was, and those forks all had issues with plating.

Clearly rubbed away - and that's the best one of the bunch.  I put off doing anything with them but hoarding them (DragonBunny that I was).  But as the first phase of the Great Purge, I sold them last fall in a ten day auction for something over $300.  Because when it's rare, or well-made, or perfect, or just plain cool, then - silver plated or not - someone wants it.  And if you do your research ahead of time, you can recognize it when you see it!

Even when you don't know quite what It is.