Рет қаралды 90
Watch Pt 1 if you wish to see how they damaged the pieces, at least the tea pot featured in this video.
Anyway, after I calmed down, I did further research on the sugar bowl. The railroad is called "New York Central & Hudson River Rail Road." This appears to be a very old and important railroad, and was linked to Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1869, and merged with a bunch of other railroads in 1914 to form the New York Central Rail Road. Although I'm not a railroad specialist, I do enjoy researching the pieces.
Unfortunately the plate loss is quite bad and the lid doesn't sit on it correctly, but it appears this is a very very important railroad and I can't find any other silver on the market with their marks. I will speak to my railroad auctioneer and see what he thinks. BUT this piece could have easily been MAULED on its way to me, no doubt it was a combination of luck and that silver soldered pieces were built tough that it survived as well as it did.
This is all the more reason to start begging these GWs to put a little thought and consideration in my purchases. They all ask for a handling fee which is a complete joke at this point, and if I ever do find something incredibly rare and valuable, only to have SGW destroy it with poor shipping practices, I will be absolutely gutted. This piece saved the box and is going to be sent to Railandroad.com auctioneers.
The tea pot will just have to stay with me. I like that it is an early part of the Webster company that formed part of the International Silver Company in the 20th century. It is not valuable enough to warrant paying for a repair, and I can't stand the idea of destroying it, so I will just keep it.