Featured Time for photos - a 4 day polishing project finished!

Good evening everyone!

This took just a weeee bit longer than I originally expected, but I get to show you the finished results of a polishing project that was 4 days long. Recently I acquired a lovely pair of silver candlestick holders. I didn't get them cheap like most of my finds, but I also couldn't resist the purchase. Here are the 'before-photos' of what they looked like prior to my marathon polishing session:

 

unusual....

 

And here's the after photos. I actually did record a short video of some of the polishing, but haven't quite mastered getting it uploaded online...Perhaps I can figure it out later and upload it:

 

Awesome job!! That's quite an amazing difference.

 

Nice work, brother Nate! That looks like a tedious endeavor.

 

Beautiful job Mr Nate, how many Q-tips did you go through on this

 

Bless your Heart, Nate...you have a Penchant for Polishing!!!!
AWESOME JOB!! Something I learned to HATE!!! (Although I loved how it looked when it was all done....by someone ELSE, of course!!!)

 

Hopefully this video works! Sorry for the watermark, it's the best I could do with free software solutions:

 

Certainly hundreds....

 

1A+ for effort

 

This appears to be by the same maker and time period, I think that confirms to me these are Austrian 13 Loth (81.2% silver) from Vienna 1856 (unless someone else thinks different):

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22821/lot/70/#/!

 

I am not in possession of the vast amount of hubris , required to question your assertions regarding silver !!



your sticks deserve special candles...

 

You're fast!

 

Great job as always Nate.

Yes, Austro-Hungarian marks from ca 1700 onward are easy to read, the date reads from left-right, top-bottom. The A is for the Vienna assay office, and it has 13 inside the Viennese cross.

Even in German I can only find T&Co identified as Tiffany. If these were sold by Tiffany, surely they would have the full Tiffany & Co retailer's marks?
Maybe someone else finds the right ID of T&Co.

 

I am in awe of your polishing skills.
You are dedicated for sure.

 

Beautiful pieces and polishing. I have seen people use a Dremel for polishing, I've never tried it. Have any of you?

 

I will tell on myself and say I did experiment with it. Let me start my saying I don’t recommend what I tried. I had a particularly challenging tarnish on a set of flatware. So what I tried was to stick q-tips cut at the center and put them on the end of a dremel with silver polish. Here’s what I figured out after just one spoon:

-It was unavoidable that every now and then the metal part of the dremel would come in contact with the silver, leaving a scrape.

-I also found the speed of the rotation heated up the polish and the silver, I got some pretty unimpressive swirl marks that were permanent.

I concluded that the technique may speed up the process but not the quality of the work, so I abandoned the technique quickly.

 

Interesting. Thank you for sharing.

 

there are Dremel tools with variable speeds.....might those work?

 

Those are stunning Mr Nate Once again your dedication to polishing brings out the beauty of items that are over 150 years old, so nice to see