Featured MAINLY A BOOK QUESTION ON RUSSIAN ICONS.....

From what I'm reading the booklet is out of print.....a dealer in Russian Icons gave it to my Mom when Mom was into collecting such.....the dealer was 'Lisa Levine'.....not sure how well known she was.....but whenever she went to Russia, she came back with some Icons, some of which my Mom would buy.....and they were lovely.....rare or valuable....I had not a clue....and they are ALL gone!!! But I still have this booklet: Guide To Russian Silver Hallmarks, by Paul L. Paulson, First Edition. Do you think there would be any interest in this booklet.....I don't think I have anything Russian in my possession left!!!!!! It's in pristine condition, EXCEPT for a small inscription to my Mom from Lisa inside the cover, and two pages that had been folded.......MANY THANKS FOR ANY INPUT!!!!!!! (Apologize for lousy image....poor lighting and quick snap..)

 

I don't know but I like it!

 

I imagine there would be interest, but I don't think you can call it pristine if it has an inscription and dog-eared pages. Very good... near fine... kind of depends on the magnitude of those folds... but it probably won't make a lot of difference to someone who wants it.

Somewhere I have an Hammer Galleries 1939 catalog of Faberge. I bought it because it was Armand Hammer, the man who was really responsible for bringing Faberge to America, so... that kind of thing can make a difference.

Here are the current AbeBooks listings:
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Se...lyadded=all&sortby=17&sts=t&tn=russian+silver

I suspect you're looking at the lower end of the price range.

 

I am not sure how icons are related to this book?? Aren't icons usually painted? And often (not always) on wood or some other material?

And nowadays it's illegal for Russian dealers to sell authentic icons to foreigners who would take them out of the country. So your mother was fortunate to have some.

 

I've been wondering about all this as well.

 

Icons are frequently covered by a tooled sheet of metal, called an oklad (or riza), pierced so that only the faces and hands show. Not unusual for an oklad to be precious metal, most commonly silver.

 

Thank you! I knew about the metal but didn't know the rest. So the lead-in about the icons was just to say that some of them probably had hallmarks, and the book might have been used to try to identify the marks. That makes sense.

 

Yes, hallmarks may identify maker and time period of an oklad. That's not necessarily going to indicate the age of the painted icon.