Featured Little S/P Eagle holding a shell dish. Victorian? open salt?

Got this little guy from my favorite thrift today for a couple bucks. I think silver plate. no marks at all. it is 2 1/2" tall and the shell is 2 1/2" diameter. Can't seem to find an exact match, but similar are stated as Victorian?
Thanks for looking

Mikey

 

Cleaned up a little bit.

 

Yes, it is for salt, hence the shell. A classic design, and very nice.
They often come in pairs.

I think so too.

 

Sweet. If a salt, wouldn't it have had a liner?

 

Not all silver and silverplate salts had liners. I have a few silver ones that don't and never did. I use them occasionally, but take out the salt after the meal.

 

As suggested in old articles or books on housekeeping (or instructions for one's servants). There seems to be a wide-spread modern assumption that silver salts must have liners or gilt interiors, despite often being found in period catalogs with neither...

~Cheryl

 

Looked though my open salt books, but no luck in finding this one.

~Cheryl

 

That's a good thing, Right?
Mikey

 

Neither really - if selling, reference to an open salt being a book-piece can be helpful, research done, with notes on dating, reissues, etc., but the books can't possibly show all the salts out there. There were some sold as old figural silverplate salts made in the late 20th century, but they were pretty awful - can't see any real problems with this piece and suspect collectors will want it...

My Mom collected salts for decades, I researched and cataloged them for her - my silver collection includes quite a few salts.


Some of Mom's silver swan salts, dating ranging from early 19th century to mid 20th:




~Cheryl

 

Those are beautiful. Thank you for showing, and thanks for all the information.
Mikey

 

I must confess, that is the only good housekeeping I do.