Found the Family Silver!

UnderMiner

Silver Member
Jul 27, 2014
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New York City
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Visited the dump today expecting the usual 2 cents and a broken VCR, instead I spotted a crushed candle holder. Ever curious, I picked it up and I looked it over. To my surprise I spotted a ".925" stamp! In shock I looked around the place to see if I could find its mate! But what I found was even better. In a nearby a pile of junk were, among other things, someone's entire family silver set!

The entire hoard consists of two hollow sterling candle holders, a little sterling saucer, sterling sugar bowl, an amazingly detailed sterling and gold washed goblet, and an unbelievably exquisite sterling cake stand. Will undoubtedly be returning tomorrow to make sure I got everything!

In total the hoard contains 1,178 grams of Sterling, or 2.6 pounds. What a haul! :icon_king:

The plunder very shortly after discovery:
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The sterling goblet. "My God..." were my only words upon seeing it.
It is damaged unfortunately, but it is still one of the most beautiful treasures I have ever found:
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My attempts to repair the goblet succeeded to some extent but I've decided to let a professional take over from here. If I had to guess I'd say it's from the early 1900's:
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The sterling cake tray is the biggest and best preserved piece in the hoard. I cleaned the grime off of it a bit for these pictures:
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It was made by Reed and Barton, which my research :read2: indicates is an insanely expensive brand. This piece alone may easily be worth over a grand:
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The sticks were the first things I found and I thought they were junk, but they're marked ".925" sterling. One is crushed beyond repair. Both are hollow :
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The sterling sugar bowl (before I fixed it) and the small sterling saucer:
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Upvote 43
Before our local dump was turned into a transfer site, I used to be able to find all kinds of treasures. What happens many times is someone dies, or a renter moves out and someone just clears out everything and takes it to the dump. I have found a few silver pieces, money, jewelry, tools, two chain saws and one time a photo album of wife nudies :tongue3: (left them there, my wife would not appreciate an album of some woman naked)

Great find, Congrats

Idahodigger
 

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