Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;MrNate, post: 1257373, member: 5515&quot;]Thank you for the fun conversation. And I&#039;ll start by saying I don&#039;t actually know for certain if I got something made of real silver. Very often I&#039;m making purchases based on limited information: get enough information to make a decision...ask for too much information and I probably don&#039;t get to make a purchase. </p><p><br /></p><p>So hopefully you saw some items that aren&#039;t very interesting and some that are definitely interesting. And I&#039;ll say that the first thing I had to do was identify these three bowls out of an original photo that had 3 teapots, a tray, a bunch of silverware and other bowls. The art of finding things online is looking for the &quot;oddball&quot; among the bunch. Most of the listings I look at aren&#039;t full of real silver, they are &quot;sprinkled&quot; with real silver surrounded by junk. So the first thing that caught my eye and got me asking for more photos was the quality of work on the three bowls. I&#039;m quite certain it&#039;s hand worked (which of course could be plated also) and it appears for the large bowl someone took a great amount of care to make it. </p><p><br /></p><p>The second clue I noticed: the edge of the bowl looked really familiar to me in style in technique. I had to go digging to find it, but in October of last year I found a large 800 silver bowl and I remembered distinctly that it had the same edge. Here&#039;s a photo of the bowl I found last year:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]216352[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>And with the bowl I found last year I remembered the mark was stamped on the front middle. I&#039;m guessing this is a common practice in certain parts of the world. So with that information I asked the seller if they could provide me a few extra photos of some items (the photos you saw above). I tried to attach a high resolution photo as a clue, but I couldn&#039;t due to the image size restriction on the forum. Here&#039;s a close up of what I saw that got me excited:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]216353[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]216354[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]216355[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Now what the heck am I looking at????? Well, maybe I&#039;m looking at nothing, and I&#039;ll be the first to admit it and eat my humble pie. I gamble on silver and lose from time to time, but I think I&#039;ve got these correct. What you might notice in all three of these photos is a little stamp/mark near the edge of the circle for each bowl. I&#039;m just guessing at this stage, because I can&#039;t make out the mark, but I think they are 830 purity silver. I&#039;m just guessing on what they actually say, because even zoomed in it&#039;s fairly blurry. So here&#039;s all the clues that lead me to make a purchase without certainty of what I&#039;m getting:</p><p><br /></p><p>1. Tone of the silver, especially the photo of the back of the large bowl. The way that cracks and crevices are tarnishing at a different rate than flat surfaces on the bowl is always a good indicator to me.</p><p><br /></p><p>2. Level of care/level of skill to make the large bowl</p><p><br /></p><p>3. A small clue, but not insignificant: the fact that the maker created a finished satin base instead of leaving it polished like the rest of the piece. A subtle but relevant clue about care and quality.</p><p><br /></p><p>4. The fact that all three bowls have these little marks in the same location.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m hopeful I&#039;m right, but I&#039;ll be the first to admit if I got this one wrong. It should be arriving after the weekend and then I&#039;ll know for sure. For those interested, round 2 of the guessing game is coming up below![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in