My wife and I recently went on a road trip with my parents. The three of them were passed out asleep in the car while I was driving through the rural United States when I saw a sign for a tiny town. I immediately recognized the name from family history research as the town where my great-grandmother was born (and where my great-great-great grandfather had passed away). It was time for a driving break so I figured, why not pull in and check out the town square?
When we got there it was clear that the town had seen better days. The only shop open in the entire square was a charity thrift store. I talk them into checking it out with me, and it's clear that some of the stock has been there.. for a while. I've never seen such a large collection of 8-tracks and Christmas vinyls. Anyhow, something caught my eye: a bunch of butter knives held together with masking tape. They looked interesting and so I picked them up. My wife says, "those look like --" but I shot her a look that said "don't give away our position!!!" -- who knows what they could be, but I don't want to attract attention to myself in a town of 100.
I stood at the register for about 10 minutes waiting for a cashier when I decided to find an employee. They were in the back room yelling about things which I was surprised to hear being discussed in such a setting. When one noticed me, I asked how much the knives were, since they had no price. She told me to hold on, she'd go ask. Instead what I heard was her complaining about their co-worker who always forgets to mark things -- when she came back, she said "a dollar." I said, well, "here's four quarters" and walked to the car. When I got there, I got to looking at them and saw "Silver Nickel" and thought, "darn, I just bought German Silver". But when I Googled the maker's mark, it didn't seem like they were made of the same stuff you see on ebay. So here I am, asking for the help of t-net to figure out whether or not I won or lost on this deal.
First, here's a picture of all of them. Note that there are 11 -- this is not a set. In fact, they're not really even all the same knives. I've noticed three different styles of the makers mark on them, and slight variations in the knife shape, which you might notice here in this picture (sort of subtle).
Most of them have the following mark: "WM. A. ROGERS SILVER NICKEL" followed by an "R" inside of a horseshoe.
A few of them, which look to be a little bit older, have almost the exact same mark, but the R is larger and it isn't in a horseshoe. The placement of the mark is also at a slightly different spot on the blade. You can see that here.
After a lot of polishing, I noticed one of those older ones had the initials "M I" scratched into the blade! Interesting.
This last knife has a significantly different shape than the others, and it also has a different hallmark than the rest. In this case, it says "WM. A. ROGERS NICKEL SILVER" followed by the large R without the horseshoe. Thus it matches the older ones except that it says "nickel silver" rather than "silver nickel".
Now after some research, I'm pretty sure these are silver plate pieces. But the plating seems nice and thick -- even with significant wear. I think they are somewhere on the order of about 100 years old. Now silver plated what, I don't know. They are not magnetic, that's all I know. The silver polish applied to them turned my rag black as sin.
Any opinions? How'd I do? Are these worth a couple dollars a piece, or should I turn them into trench art?
Thank you,
mcl
EDIT: Just noticed one of the "recent" ones is for sale on ebay and they also mention their knife is non-magnetic -- just want to clarify, it's not my posting.
When we got there it was clear that the town had seen better days. The only shop open in the entire square was a charity thrift store. I talk them into checking it out with me, and it's clear that some of the stock has been there.. for a while. I've never seen such a large collection of 8-tracks and Christmas vinyls. Anyhow, something caught my eye: a bunch of butter knives held together with masking tape. They looked interesting and so I picked them up. My wife says, "those look like --" but I shot her a look that said "don't give away our position!!!" -- who knows what they could be, but I don't want to attract attention to myself in a town of 100.
I stood at the register for about 10 minutes waiting for a cashier when I decided to find an employee. They were in the back room yelling about things which I was surprised to hear being discussed in such a setting. When one noticed me, I asked how much the knives were, since they had no price. She told me to hold on, she'd go ask. Instead what I heard was her complaining about their co-worker who always forgets to mark things -- when she came back, she said "a dollar." I said, well, "here's four quarters" and walked to the car. When I got there, I got to looking at them and saw "Silver Nickel" and thought, "darn, I just bought German Silver". But when I Googled the maker's mark, it didn't seem like they were made of the same stuff you see on ebay. So here I am, asking for the help of t-net to figure out whether or not I won or lost on this deal.
First, here's a picture of all of them. Note that there are 11 -- this is not a set. In fact, they're not really even all the same knives. I've noticed three different styles of the makers mark on them, and slight variations in the knife shape, which you might notice here in this picture (sort of subtle).
Most of them have the following mark: "WM. A. ROGERS SILVER NICKEL" followed by an "R" inside of a horseshoe.
A few of them, which look to be a little bit older, have almost the exact same mark, but the R is larger and it isn't in a horseshoe. The placement of the mark is also at a slightly different spot on the blade. You can see that here.
After a lot of polishing, I noticed one of those older ones had the initials "M I" scratched into the blade! Interesting.
This last knife has a significantly different shape than the others, and it also has a different hallmark than the rest. In this case, it says "WM. A. ROGERS NICKEL SILVER" followed by the large R without the horseshoe. Thus it matches the older ones except that it says "nickel silver" rather than "silver nickel".
Now after some research, I'm pretty sure these are silver plate pieces. But the plating seems nice and thick -- even with significant wear. I think they are somewhere on the order of about 100 years old. Now silver plated what, I don't know. They are not magnetic, that's all I know. The silver polish applied to them turned my rag black as sin.
Any opinions? How'd I do? Are these worth a couple dollars a piece, or should I turn them into trench art?
Thank you,
mcl
EDIT: Just noticed one of the "recent" ones is for sale on ebay and they also mention their knife is non-magnetic -- just want to clarify, it's not my posting.
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