The Silver Pieces Shown above are the Property of The Silver Queen Inc. and displayed in our in store museum at 1350 West Bay Dr,  Largo,  Florida.

The Script  Below is from
"The History of Silver in America" Seminar presented by
Pat & Greg Arbutine at The Florida International Museum -November 4, 2006

                        “History of Silverware in America”

Presented by Pat & Greg Arbutine at the Florida International Museum – November 4, 2006

 Hello everyone,

           I’m holding up here the world’s largest sterling teaspoon.  It contains 20 pounds of sterling silver and has a value of 25,000 dollars.   

So now that I’ve hopefully gotten your attention, we’re here today to talk to you about the story of silverware in America.

      Now as you may know, our company The Silver Queen buys and sells silverware, china, crystal, gifts, coins & jewelry.
However, ….. our main passion has always been for the sterling silver.

       Over the last 34 years, we occasionally buy a piece here and there, that when we see how beautiful and well made it is, we just don’t have the heart to part with it.  

So, when we expanded our store 4 years ago, we installed an in store silver museum.  We’ve brought along today several key pieces from that collection in which we will use to illustrate a historical perspective regarding the history of silverware in The United States.

       When the Americas were first colonized there was not much demand or need for expensive silver items as just surviving was the primary priority in life. 

In the 1700’s, when  settlements started to become more permanent only then did the traditional silversmiths shops that were common in England and continental Europe begin to emerge.

    Colonial silversmiths of the United States did not have much raw silver metal, available to them, and it got worse when King George the third banned all silver export to the colonies. 

So, what the colonists did was take the coins from their pockets like these silver dollars in my hands.  and basically melted them down to make spoons and forks & silver hollowware items like tea sets, tankards, and candlesticks.  Most coin silver items are made of 90% pure silver which is only slightly lower than today’s standard.   

     From the 1700’s to about 1850 any silver made in that period in The United States is now known as coin silver.

The first item from our museum collection that I’d like to show you is a coin silver spoon made in the year 1790 by the famous patriot Paul Revere.

This tiny demitasse teaspoon only has an intrinsic silver value of about $2, but…. because of it being so rare and made by such a famous silversmith, it has a collectible value is about 10,000.

As you can see the spoon is very plain and simple, which was the predominant style through the 1700’s and early 1800’s.

      However, as the US became a little more wealthy and affluent the styles in coin silver became more decorative and ornate.   My mother is going to show you several items made from coin silver that depict some beautiful designs: 

Hi everyone, this first item that my son is displaying for you is a beautiful coin silver tea set I purchased about 27 years from a very nice older lady.  It was made in Boston, Massachusetts in the year 1850 by Woodward and Grosjean, who went on later to design for Tiffany & Company.    The set is heavily decorated and employs the use of the “Repousse” technique which is the hammering from the inside of a piece to the outside to form a high relief 3 dimensional look.  This set is also extremely rare because it has a Chinoserie depiction of a Chinese village scene. 

There was a large influx of Chinese immigrants in the 1850’s and that actually influenced the design work of a lot of silver in production.  It’s a stunning set and one of my favorites out of the collection we own.  It’s not for sale, but if it ever were the value would be about $75,000.

       We’ve also brought along with us another coin silver tea set piece in the Medallion pattern  made by Peter Krider of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, my home state.  It was also made in the 1850’s.  This set has gorgeous full figural handles and is reminiscent of antique cameo jewelry.  It’s also very rare and has a value of about $25,000. 

     It also just happens to be the matching pattern to my personal silver flatware at home which is also in the Medallion pattern.  There’s not much of this pattern around, but my son gives me pieces that we buy in the store as Mother’s Day, Birthday Gift’s and Christmas presents so my collection over the years has really started to accumulate. 

      After the West was won and the frontiers in The United States opened up, so did the access to raw metals.  The Comstock load in particular gave the silver manufacturers access to almost unlimited amounts of silver to use in production.

In the 1860’s the silver companies decided to break away from the use of coin silver and decided to comply with the English standard of ---“sterling”----- as the new standard of production.  Silver is a very soft metal and it needs to be alloyed to make it harder and suitable for use. Otherwise, it would bend too easily. 

      The English in the year 1200 realized this and adopted a standard of 92 & ½% silver and 7-1/2% copper nickel.    They called this alloy --“sterling”-- which is what is still the standard in use today.

       With the advent of the use of sterling emerged 3 major US manufacturers of silver  that really drove the history of silver in America and we are going to  showcase those 3 companies for you today.

These are the houses of  Gorham, Tiffany and Reed & Barton:
 

       The house of Gorham was founded by Jabez Gorham in the early 1830’s.

The Gorham manufacturing plant was one of the more innovative of all silverware companies in The United States.  John Gorham back in the 1850’s more or less revolutionized the manufacturing and production of siver flatware.   He was the first to turn away from producing everything by hand assembly techniques and instead stream lined the system by using mechanical drop presses and die cut rolls, very similar to what the U.S. mint had been using for the production of coinage.  This enabled the cost of producing flatware to be lowered and instead of only the very affluent and wealthy being able to afford silver, it allowed the more common man and middle class family to also be able to purchase silverware.  By the turn of the 19^th century, almost every family of any means usually had some sterling silverware in their possession.  Many of the popular patterns from that time of over a hundred years ago are still very popular today, including the big spoon I showed earlier in the famous Strasbourg pattern.

        However, now that everyone and their brother was able to own sterling, the rich and affluent of that time of the gilded age wanted something better than what the ordinary man had.

       There were also many artists and artisans were very unhappy with the quality and lack of imagination used with the machine produced items. They all demanded a return to higher quality hand made items that denoted class and distinction. 

This movement is now known in history as “The arts and crafts movement.” 

In response to this at that time, The Gorham company decided to come up with a program called the “Martele”, which is the French word for hand hammered.

         Prior to this Gorham had always been a maker of special custom order pieces for clients of wealth and stature. Gorham exhibited many of their masterpieces in art exhibitions across the world, mainly in Paris.  Their designers frequently received many awards and recognition.  

       However the Martele program was very unique and very special in that each piece was meticulously documented and numbered and could only be made by hand.  

An artist was given a lump of silver like this 100 ounce silver bar.  They were given a drawing and instructed to make the piece completely by hand into a fine decorative accessory.  The skilled Gorham craftsmen would sometimes toil for hundreds of hours just on one piece, hand manipulating and forming it into a usable object and then another artist would chase it on the outside, to form a beautiful designed one of a kind masterpiece.

         My mom is holding up a Martele water pitcher that we were lucky enough to purchase a few years ago.  This pitcher took a over 100 hours to make and as you can see it’s a very special piece.   

      Gorham’s “Martele” program only lasted from 1897 to 1911 and today these pieces are the very rarest to be found on the market.   They are even more sought after than the rarest Tiffany Pieces.  This one water pitcher has an approximate value of about 75,000.

      I also want to give you a perspective on the 300 Martele pieces that you will see inside of the Florida International Museum.  If you were to walk into a car museum and see 300 old antique cars you would be lucky to see maybe 2-3 Deusenburgs, which is a like the holy grail of car makers to car collectors.  

      The Martele collection here is basically comparable to seeing a car museum with 300 Deusenburgs all in tip top shape.  This really is a highly incredible caliber collection and it’s difficult to convey to the the non silver collector how really important it is.

We’re all really privileged here to see something like this in St. Petersburg.

Now I’ll hand over the microphone to Pat again who will talk about our next great silver maker, Tiffany & Company. 

       The 2^nd great house of silver manufacturing we’d like to tell you about is Tiffany & Company of New York.   Charles Tiffany back in the 1840’s started his company much like our own at The Silver Queen.  It was a high end jewelry store and diamond merchant  which also re-sold other brands of sterling gifts and flatware even including ones even made by Gorham. 

      As their business progressed, Charles Tiffany decided to have manufacturers and independent silversmith houses make pieces from their own lines exclusively just for Tiffany.  For example company in England would completely design and produce a piece for Tiffany and then merely mark on the bottom of it “Made for Tiffany.” and then it would be sold in the Tiffany showroom as a Tiffany item.  These early Tiffany pieces however, are generally not acknowledged in today’s market as true Tiffany masterpieces and their values tend to be pretty low in comparison to their later works.

       As we know the Tiffany brand name is practically a house hold name today, however that wasn’t always the case and in the 1850’s Charles Tiffany being a somewhat colorful character and genius at public relations and marketing  used some pretty unusual marketing techniques to get attention for his company.  

One interesting example is:

 In 1855, P.T Barnum was obliged to destroy a man killing elephant from his circus.   Tiffany bought the elephant’s hide and put it on display to promote a collection of his leather goods for which it would serve as raw material.  The line of goods was so popular that the police had to be called in to control the massive mob of buyers. 

After a few other successful marketing gimmicks that solidified the company’s name and bank account, in the 1860’s Charles decided to go into the manufacturing business.

He hired a famous New York designer name John C. Moore and after that it didn’t take long for Tiffany to excel in its innovative designs.   The company began to win many awards at various national exhibitions.  In the 1867 Paris exhibition, the English firm of Elkington paid Tiffany the highest compliment by buying a half dozen pieces from the Tiffany exhibit.  They tried to buy the entire exhibit but could not.   The grand prix award that Tiffany received at that exhibition was the only one ever given by a foreign country to an American silverware manufacturer at that time.

       My son is holding up for you several beautiful Tiffany Sterling Serving pieces.  As you can see they are very ornate, and typically tiffany flatware tends to be a lot heavier in weight than most manufacturers.  

            In 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, The Tiffany Company  won no fewer than fifty six medals.  Ironically though, even though the designs of Tiffany are still the world’s most  renowned and recognized, the value of the Gorham Martele pieces far exceed anything that Tiffany ever put out.    This is because of two main reasons.  The Martele program only lasted from 1897 to 1911, and even though Tiffany in the same time frame put out some of their most magnificent works, they’re weren’t officially categorized and set apart as was the Gorham Martele program was.

The second reason is that Tiffany never did make a line of pieces that had such rigid restrictions on being 100% soley made by hand.   However, that’s not to say you won’t find any pieces out there by Tiffany that don’t have the majority of it’s manufacture mostly by hand.   My son is holding up a bowl made by Tiffany in the year 1900 that has a marking of special hand work.   This piece was pressed out and spun first by a machine and then only hand worked after that process was completed.

      Charles Tiffany’s son Louis Comfort Tiffany unfortunately did not share the same interest in silver that his father did.    His interest was art glass.He formed his own company called "Tiffany Studios."   to produce of art glass.  He still maintained close family ties with his family company.  Much of his glassware was sold through Tiffany and Copany.  When his father died he became the artistic director of the company.

My son is now holding a pair of Tiffany Favrille glass candlesticks.  As you can see the iridescent colors are quite extraordinary.  This pair has an approximate value of about $10,000.00.    One can only wish and wonder what incredible silver would have been produced had Louis Comfort Tiffany had followed in the footsteps that his father took the company.

      The last great house of silver production that we’d like to showcase for  you today  is one of my favorites:  Reed & Barton.    Henry Reed and Charles Barton had their beginnings in the early 1800’s as producers of tin metal alloy products called Britannia.  When the process of electroplating became perfected in the 1830’s their company soon became a large producer for the next 40 years of silver plated hollowware.

      Silver plate is basically a micro thin layer of silver plating over a base metal of copper and nickel alloy.  We have here a beautiful bright cup etched style silver plated ice water pitcher made by Reed & Barton that my mom is holding up for you to take a look at.   This piece was made in 1870, but as you can see it is in pristine condition and even has its original porcelain liner still intact.  Even though this piece is only silver plated, because of its condition and age, it would still be worth around $1500 if it were ever for sale.

         Reed & Barton is primarily known for their incredible flatware patterns like Francis the first, and 18^th Century which are still amongst our top sellers.  My mom is holding up for you really ornate berry server in their Love Disarmed pattern.  It is one of the most beautifully crafted and 3 dimensional looking patterns that we have for sell and is it’s extremely Art Nouveau in design as you can see.   It’s also the flatware that is shown on the beautiful dining room table display here in the Martele Exhibit.

         Reed & Barton was also a trend setter in the 40’s and 50’s merging ladies fashions and tying it into flatware design.  We sell a pattern named Florentine Lace for example.  It was taken from a dress made by a designer and then made into an actual flatware pattern.

         Reed & Barton also hired famous archictects to design their flatware.   One very promintent one was Gio Ponti who designed the “diamond pattern.”  It has a very asymmetrical design and its production required the challenge of new tools and manufacturing techniques to produce.

        A final note about Reed & Barton is that  it has the distinction of being one of the few silver manufacturers left in the industry that is still privately owned and has not been bought out.   This is actually a good thing because they’ve been able to maintain even to this day a standard of quality and design that sometimes is lacking in modern times when the corporate take over and raiders get to the helm.

              So far we’ve taken you through the  18^th and 19^th century history of silverware, and in all honesty, the hey day and glory days  of silver design and production were at their pinnacle during the turn of the 19^th century back in 1880 to about 1910. 

       During the first 50 years of the 20^th century, a lot of the silver companies had to adapt to coping with world wars, the depression and many other changes.   Many of the more glorious wow pieces in that period were actually made for the military.  Each battle ship had it’s own tea sets and silver services custom made for it by various silver manufacturers.

       All of this opened the door a little bit for some foreign designers and competitors to come into the market.   Up until 1900, the greatest designs sold in America were from American designers.  There was some English silver and a little German, but the majority was made in the U.S.

       In the 1920’s when the art deco period came into vogue, there were two overseas companies that came in and put a foot hold into the United States silver world.  We’d like to mention those two real quick. The first maker is Georg Jensen of Denmark.  My son is holding up a bowl made by Georg Jensen.  As you can see it is all hand hammered very similar to the Martele.

       The second foreign maker that came into influence in the US was Christofle of  Paris France.   My mom is holding up an art deco tea service that is the same pattern that was used on the SS Normandie.   This set really embodies the stereotypical look of the deco period. 

       Both of these foreign companies have lines of silverware & hollowware and are still today very prominent in the US as high end makers of fine silver goods.

        After world war II, The U.S manufacturers  had a renaissance of sorts in their flatware sales.  Sterling flatware become so popular and prolific in the household that it was commonplace to have a door to door salesman visit your home in the 40’s 50’s and 60’s to bring samples of flatware and to help ladies at home pick out silverware.  I myself purchased my first set of sterling this way.

       Many of the most all time popular sterling patterns like Grande Baroque, Old Master, Rose Point, & Prelude, just to name a few, were launched during this period of history in silverware.

         In the 1970’s, however,  in the age of Mary Tyler Moore, as women began to enter the work force, the dining at home concept became less popular, and eventually the demand for silverware began to ebb somewhat.

         In 1980 when the Hunt Brothers cornered the market on silver and it went to $50 per troy ounce, this really hurt the silver business in general.   Sales plummeted 70% as most consumers could not or did not want to pay the exorbitant prices that flatware now cost.

        When prices calmed down and the market reverted back to some normalcy, many of the major department stores and many jewelry shops who had for decades traditionally retailed sterling, just out right decided to stop displaying the many sterling patterns available for sale.  They didn’t want to take a chance again that the market prices would rise again and ruin their business.  Plus, the trend of formal dining at home was fast losing steam to the convenience of eating out, especially with the 2 person working family become more and more cemented into the societal everyday family. 

      That’s where our company and other pattern matching services like ours had fortunately found a niche market by being able to satisfy the demand of consumers who could not find sterling around in stores anymore.

      We started in the 1980’s marketing our pattern matching services in national magazines and newspapers around the country advertising our 800 number.

With our Knack for making good buys and also helping customers by keeping their names on file and letting them know when we had the pieces they were looking for, we eventually built up a sizable inventory over the years.    We now carry over 12,000 patterns of both active and discontinued sterling, plated, stainless, china and crystal patterns.  We currently have over 150,000 pieces in stock of both pre-owned and brand new pieces to choose from

      We also offer a 52 page free color catalog.

(Which I’m proud to say that I’m the designer of.) 

But…..,  our web site lately  silverqueen.com has become the big….. driving force of our company.

My mom in particular who we cheerfully refer to as our web mistress, is still very active in the design and creation of new web pages for our on-line stores.

She often playfully refers to her web designing as her crocheting.

 In the last 5 years we’ve seen the internet business grow from a small 5-10% of our sales in the late 1990’s to now a whopping 40% of all our sales and leads. 

There’s also been a trend for the consumer to purchase silver on Ebay, but we’ve discovered that most of our customers who initially left us for such on-line auctions have now returned after realizing the amount of fraud and lack of integrity on these services.

      We’ve always prided our selves on offering the very best possible customer service and highest quality products on both new and pre-owned items.   Honesty, Integrity and Reliability is our paramount core business paradigm and it’s kept our silver reputation untarnished.

      In the present day today, the modern silver manufacturers are mere shadows of what they once were in comparison to the hey days of the gilded age and of the baby boom surge of demand in the 40’s through the 60’s.   I’ve been told that the amount of silver being produced today is a mere 1/10^th of what was once produced at the heights of the market.  The major manufacturers today are still for the most part prosperous and most have had to diversify greatly adding lines of matching china dinnerware, crystal and larger lines of giftware. 

 Some of the manufacturers are starting to outsource a lot of their product manufacturing to foreign countries, which isn’t as good a quality in my opinion.  It is our hope that they at least keep their sterling silver lines here in United States, which is so far the case.

Even though the demand for silverware has waned,  I think there will always be a demand for sterling silver.  The brides in their 20’s and 30’s today are too busy with their careers and dining is so informal usually don’t register for sterling anymore.    Fortunately though for us,  there has been a  big trend in the past few years that the  2^nd wedding usually is where the sterling registered for.   We’ve also seen a lot of women in their 40’s and 50’s who realize the good thing they gave up and now have the means to buy full sets. 

         Before we conclude, my son would like to give you all three silver polishing tips.

       The first one is to never use any dip solutions like Tarnex to clean your good silver.These dips are just basically diluted acid, and take off an uneven thin coat of silver every time you use them. 

Over a period of years your silver will start to look worn and dull.  What we recommend instead is for you to use good old fashioned elbow grease with a good polishing cloth or silver polish like Hagerty’s.  The polishing cloth will still take off some silver, but it will be in a more even distribution and if done gently, very little silver will be lost.

       The 2^nd polishing tip I’d live to convey to you is to be pro-active and stop tarnish before it starts.

Basically, what causes silver to tarnish, is the Sulfur in the air. To slow down this tarnishing process, we sell silver protection strips that will actually absorb the sulfur before it interacts. When placed inside your silver chests or inside your china and silver cabinets they effectively slow the tarnishing process. We’ve a number of customers write to us that they’ve saved a lot of time polishing because of having these.

Our final tip on polishing is that you should actually use your silver on a regular basis.   If you only use your sterling once or twice a year, then it’s more likely it will require a heavy duty cleaning whereas if used regularly only a small touch up will be needed here and there.  Plus, you’ll find that the patina and luster of the metal will look prettier with regular use.  

Well, that pretty much wraps up our speech today.

To conclude, I would like to thank you all for inviting us to speak to you.

I would also like to invite you to come see again, the pieces here that we’ve showed you today, along with the rest of our entire collection of over 400 items proudly on display at our store for your viewing pleasure.  We’d like to open up the floor to you right now for anyone who has any further questions, otherwise,

Thank you again, and it was our pleasure being here.