Featured After a 6 1/2 hour hunt, SUCCESS strikes again!

Discussion in 'Silver' started by MrNate, Nov 19, 2017.

  1. MrNate

    MrNate Well-Known Member

    Wow, wow, and wow is how I would describe my day today. I've been sick over the weekend, and partly to spare my family from getting the same cold, I struck out to see some of my local thrift shops. I had the goal to see how many stores I could visit between 11am and 6pm. It was a ROUGH day! I'm not just searching for silver, I'm really looking for anything of value, and the stores were quite challenging today. I passed on a lot of items (the sign of a disciplined hunter in my opinion) and continued just hoping that something would turn up for me.

    It's definitely not the first time I've had a long challenging day trying to find something nice, but it wears you down after a number of hours, and it's a terrible feeling when you come home at the end of a day without anything really valuable to show for it. I still enjoy the process, but I enjoy it more when I bring home some goodies. Well...I got lucky. Almost 6 hours into my search, I came across two bowls stacked on top of each other, the one on the bottom looked obviously plated, but the one on top of it looked GREAT. To me, this is the greatest moment of anticipation, the bowl looks great, but you say to yourself "it's probably just another thick plated bowl" and as you pick the bowl up and flip it over, you see the most wonderful set of letters, and you wonder to yourself "how did the owner miss it? how did the workers at the store miss it? how did everyone else shopping in the store miss it? but who CARES I FOUND IT!!" ....Sterling

    Sorry for my dramatic explanation, but that's honestly how excited I get every time I find something, I'm glad I get to post another one to the forum! I bought this one for $3 and a LOT of driving from store to store.

    IMG_1384.JPG
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    IMG_1388.JPG IMG_1389.JPG
     
  2. Bakersgma

    Bakersgma Well-Known Member

    3 bucks? You should be arrested for highway robbery!

    ;) j/k
     
  3. aaroncab

    aaroncab in veritate victoria

    The moments of payoff are so sweet! Awesome bowl!
     
  4. Sandra

    Sandra Well-Known Member

    Lucky find, I just hope you didn't spread your cold throughout your local thrift shops.:doctor:
    I believe the form of your bowl is referred to as the Paul Revere shape.
     
    Aquitaine, judy, KingofThings and 8 others like this.
  5. silverthwait

    silverthwait Well-Known Member

    I know just how you feel!! Ain't it grand!!
     
    Aquitaine, judy, KingofThings and 4 others like this.
  6. MrNate

    MrNate Well-Known Member

    I hope I didn't spread anything too! Thanks for the info on the shape, I learn something new every day. I found a few photos of 521 & 522/3 bowls, looks like this was a 1960's production. I can't find this specific one yet, but the 522/523 had a colored enamel placed over the inside of the bowl, kind of an interesting design.
     
  7. cxgirl

    cxgirl Well-Known Member

    lol, gotta love it when this happens! Great score MrNate, hope you feel better soon:)
     
  8. pearlsnblume

    pearlsnblume Well-Known Member

    Great find, I hope it made you feel better.
     
    judy, KingofThings and Christmasjoy like this.
  9. patd8643

    patd8643 Well-Known Member

    Congrats on your find... We received one of these as a wedding present 50+ years ago.

    Patd
     
    judy, KingofThings and SBSVC like this.
  10. SBSVC

    SBSVC Well-Known Member

    Mr Nate, I have an entire display cabinet full of enameled sterling, and it includes bowls from Towle, as well as other makers. Tomorrow, in the daylight, I'll check the numbers on the Towle bowls and see if I have any in the 520 range...

    Here's a bit of it:
    img0 (35).jpg
    img0 (34).jpg

    (Sorry, I didn't realize how bad the photos were... I took them a while ago & never looked back at them.)
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2017
    LIbraryLady, wenna, Lucille.b and 7 others like this.
  11. evelyb30

    evelyb30 Well-Known Member

    Nice! I've never seen a Revere bowl actually in silver before. They're always plated if not pewter.
     
    Aquitaine, judy, MrNate and 1 other person like this.
  12. Sandra

    Sandra Well-Known Member

    Fabulous display SBSVC, are those mushroom shaped pieces salt/pepper shakers?
     
  13. SBSVC

    SBSVC Well-Known Member

    Thanks, Sandra - and yes, those are salts & peppers. The ones shown there are my Mexican ones. I have 16 or 18 Scandinavian sets, too, but they're in a different cabinet.

    I love the white spots on the ones from Mexico - they're just so cheerful! The Scandinavian ones seem almost dull in comparison, even tho the enamel work on them is truly lovely.
     
  14. MrNate

    MrNate Well-Known Member

    Wow SBSVC, that is a BEAUTIFUL collection. My eyes are getting larger and larger. And thanks for offering a comparison, if I could take a guess, I think the blue bowl in the top left of your third picture is going to be a TOWLE 521/523/525, just a guess ;)
     
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  15. SBSVC

    SBSVC Well-Known Member

    Mr. Nate, I'll let you know tomorrow!
     
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  16. rhiwfield

    rhiwfield Well-Known Member

    Nice find!

    In the UK that would scrap at about £60 (not saying you should!). And it brings home the different motivations for buying. I think we all like the thrill of the chase, finding a hidden gem, researching its history and maybe turning a profit.

    When we first started, initially motivated by a conviction we could do a successful Bargain Hunt (!), we used to drive round the charity shops, and got the occasional so-so find but as we were just beginning to run it as a business with a profit and loss account it quickly became apparent this was not the business route forward!

    In the UK HMRC allowance for cars for business use is currently 45p per mile (petrol/depreciation etc). So if we did a round trip of charity shops in local towns we might have to do 100 miles (£45) with no guarantee of finding anything worth having.

    Then there is the time factor. Did we really want to spend most of the day for a very small profit or worse (as it often was) a loss after costs?

    If we were younger we might have got into house clearance but as we are creaking at the joints our most profitable sources of stock, in order of merit, are now:
    1) General auction sales without online visibility
    2) General auction sales (online visibility)
    3) Fine auction sales, occasional large ephemera lots.
    4) Car boot buys (not many now as I don't like to get up at 5am)
    5) Charity shop buys (hardly ever now...payback just too small to be worthwhile, may pop in one if passing and we make buys just once or twice a month)

    The big advantage of auctions is the chance to buy in bulk and split up lots to sell. Inevitably you pick up some sleepers and, if you resist the temptation to lock horns with a collector prepared to pay retail, there is usually a good gross profit margin and your costs are contained and spread across many purchases

    With general auctions the range of goods for sale is enormous, so we operate a policy of bidding for any portable, interesting lots that we can get for a good price and dropping out of those where aggressive bidding means resale margins are too low. We may mark up 50-100 lots to bid on and maybe get 10-20.

    Whoops...long post, sorry!
     
  17. judy

    judy Well-Known Member

    You're too hard of yourself SB.....pictures are fine, and the collection is really beautiful!
     
    Lucille.b, SBSVC, Aquitaine and 2 others like this.
  18. Houseful

    Houseful Well-Known Member

    Not that I'm superstitious but I have had the itchy palm thing going on from time to time and found something precious in the next week.
    Wondered if anyone else ever got that?
     
    judy likes this.
  19. evelyb30

    evelyb30 Well-Known Member

    Today was a total bust, but...you never know. Every so often a sleeper pops up even in the thrift. I go into my local Ill Will several times a week, but it's literally a mile down the road. I check the Habitat for Humanity ReStore once a week too, for the same reason.
     
    judy likes this.
  20. SBSVC

    SBSVC Well-Known Member

    Well, Mr Nate, I checked... not a SINGLE ONE is a Towle 520 series! A few pieces ARE Towle, but not the bowls. (Most are Gorham, & a few pieces are Reed & Barton.) I was more than a bit surprised!

    p.s. There are quite a few Scandinavian pieces in there, too!
     
    judy likes this.
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