Featured A curious item came in the mail today

Well,

If you haven't noticed, I've been very busy online lately, it's pretty much my new thing to do. So, I purchased this set awhile ago and it arrived in the mail today. I saw a couple of interesting items, and it wasn't expensive at all. I didn't even ask for additional photos as I figured I'd just roll the dice:



Initially I thought I struck out completely, as I couldn't find a good mark on a single item. The goblet was what caught my eye, and I was disappointed when I couldn't find a single silver mark on it. I gently squeezed the edges of the cup, and it had that silver springy feel I've felt many times. I decided to acid test it, and to my excitement it came back time and time again testing as silver from the same scraping location. So now I was genuinely confused, I looked over the item very carefully again and again. I could only find one mark on the bottom... So, on to my question:

Is there a way to confirm age/origin/purity since this item isn't really marked?

PS: I should mention what drew my eye to the goblet was the tarnish pattern on the inside of the cup. I don't know how to describe this, but I like it when I see it as it seems to be correlated with real silver (is this the rolling process that creates small ridges?) Price was $18 total.

 

I'd be inclined to call it a chalice.

 

Hey @MrNate what is that teddy bear ? Is it plated ?

 

I actually didn't get the teddy bear, but I'm sure it's plated. The deal I made with the seller: put everything into a 12.5"x9.5" flat rate USPS padded envelope, and I gave them a list of the priority of items that I wanted. I told them that they should pack the envelope in a certain order, and if they run out of space that's okay. The teddy bear was the last item on my priority list, and it didn't fit into the envelope. Here's what the bear is:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Godinger-S...282031?hash=item547a6dff6f:g:F9cAAOSwzvhdrjoQ

 

You found someone who could understand your instructions & actually followed them?!

 

The seller was impressively helpful. After I told them the order, they sent me this photo to confirm they had it right. As their photo shows, the chalice was the top of my list based on how it looked:

 

Very nice. Those items fit and were not squished a lot in a padded mailer and not a box?
Wow.

 

The 12.5 x 9.5" USPS mailer is a gift from heaven....It fits a lot, I've received complete flatware sets in it.

 

Very interesting.

 

Quick update, I found some marks (kind of) but I need some help researching. I can't believe i didn't check before, but i shined a flashlight into the stem of the goblet, and there's some letters in there. After cleaning it up, it appears to say:

"JJ WORTH" or "1J WORTH" or "11 WORTH"

The second line appears to say:

"KEN MUIR" or "KEN M UIR" or "KEN MUIP" or "KEN MUIB"

I'm sorry I can't get a photo because I can't seem to find an easy way to get a photo inside the stem. I did a quick search and so far no results. I'll try to get a photo somehow, but in the meantime any help to try to identify the wording would be tremendously helpful.

 

Any help with this maker/mark would be greatly appreciated. The goblet has been acid tested as silver:

 

Great photo, @MrNate -- I can't do searching right now, and there are many silver experts here that will probably have ideas on your last question.

But I wanted to ask, how did you get that last photo so clearly?

 

Thanks Figtree3, it took a bit of experimenting to get a clear photo, here’s what I did:

-I set the item down so the base was facing up

-I took the photo with an iPhone that has the ability to zoom

-prior to taking the photo, I zoomed in on the camera app as far as I could

-I used the light from my loupe as a flashlight to shine light into the stem. I had to find an angle that put in the correct amount of light without blocking the shot

-to get a focused shot I knew my phone wouldn’t auto focus into the recess, so I moved it away from the item at a distance that lined up for focus and took the shot, it only took a few attempts to get a clear image

 

Thanks very much! If I can be that coordinated I may try that technique.

 

Looks like a circa mid 19th century American coin goblet, believe the name is 'KENMUIR', suspect a jeweler/retailer rather than maker, with '11 WORTH' his address (perhaps Worth St. in NY). Quick look in my available references didn't find anything, but suspect John Kenmuir might be a likely candidate, or probably a bit less likely, his brother James - perhaps our genealogy researchers might find more info...

John Kenmuir: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Kenmuir-11

James Kenmuir: https://books.google.com/books?id=D...3oECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=kenmuir jeweler&f=false

~Cheryl

 

Thank you for the help Cheryl, if the top line is an address, that actually makes great sense. I don't think I'll be able to truly get to the bottom of this one, but it's enough of an explanation for me to live with. The goblet is a bit dented up, and since I've nothing to lose I'm going to see if I can fix it up a bit. It will probably become my personal drinking cup. Since there's no real history to point to, it would have only brought scrap and I don't want to see a nice piece go to waste like that. On a related note, I found a really cool resource because you mentioned NYC. I was trying to identify the history of Worth Street (by the way, it got renamed to worth street in the 1850's so the timeline matched up) and I came across this wonderful site called Old NYC. It's essentially google maps for NYC in the 1800's based on historical photos. If anyone wants to check it out:

https://www.oldnyc.org/

 

WOW! That is a fabulous link!!!!!!

 

Well, I went looking for John and his brother James on Ancestry records. Obviously James is better documented and the details given in the book attached generally match up with census and other records.

John, however, has fewer record hits than I would like - and although I found him arriving in NYC from Ireland in 1850 (with his young first wife) I cannot find him in any records in or around NYC itself. I have found an 1860 census record that could be him and his family - but they are living in Ogdensburgh, St. Lawrence County - wayyyyyyyyy far away from NYC. Then he disappears until 1880, living in Saint Joseph, Missouri with his second wife. He died there in 1888. There is an obit attached to his FindAGrave record, but it does not mention NYC at all.

 

Well, this is obvious...but I guess I should have looked at where the item originated from. The person I bought it from shipped it to me from Raymore, MO!!! I think we have all the right clues that point to the greater Kansas City MO area. Thank you ALL for helping to fit the puzzle pieces together to partially explain the story. I might do a little more searching/hunting regarding the top line of text, as I couldn't find much to connect a street name yet.

 

More digging, interesting excerpt from page 8 of the link below:



http://www.nwmogenealogy.com/members/journals/1981_No_2.pdf