posted 10-09-2010 09:19 AM            

Today I see more and more poorly repaired items and never before seen items that are poorly crafted things that look the part but would never have been made by a professional silversmith or the original manufacturer/designer.

posted 10-09-2010 04:08 PM            

I don't support poor craftsmanship, bad design, or ruining a fine object.

posted 10-10-2010 12:14 PM            

Are you talking about the lifetime website where they have all their silver brands listed? I know that back in April/May they notified retailers/customers that many patterns would become MTO patterns in October. They really pared down the number of active patterns.

Believe it or not, the original Gorham website is still up but obviously not updated and is basically just wasting space. Lifetime seems to have taken the other silvermakers websites and they re-direct you to the lifetime website.

And to get back on track, I do not understand the purpose of taking knife handles and adding stainless implements to make basic pieces that are easily available. The big pattern matching website can custom-make (LOL) teaspoons, salad forks, dinner forks, place spoons etc. in the popular patterns and in some case the custom-made pieces are more expensive than the original solid silver pieces. I have yet to figure out why someone would want a Chantilly teaspoon with a stainless bowl (and pay more for it) than just buying a solid original teaspoon.

I have seen pieces "re-purposed" by other companies into pate servers, relish spoons, mustard ladles, cheese kives with pick and on and on. This pieces are easy to spot in that they aren't proportional and in most case are "fantasy pieces".

Right now my biggest OMG moment are the jewelry pieces that are showing up that are just the decorative end cut off a spoon or fork, have a hole drilled into them, and then hung from a cheap chain to make a necklace or have wires strung through to make dangling earrings. I think some are even strung together to make a matching bracelet. IMHO, these pieces are just ugly.

posted 10-10-2010 12:29 PM            

Have to say that I've seen some great old pieces of flatware destroyed for jewelry, etc., not sure that many creators of any type of re-purposed silver have the eye or knowledge to differentiate between the more mundane pieces and those that should never be altered. I'm choosing to believe that the old mixed-metal spoon ring seen at a show was formed from a badly damaged piece rather than one that just had its bowl hack-sawed off (suspect it was Gorham, but the mark must have gone to the scrap pile).

For me, aesthetics are a problem with much of the modified flatware - they are just so often awkward or incongruous in their execution. Just a couple of weeks ago, ran across a pair of Albert Coles Fiddle tablespoons, highly machine-buffed, with the the bowls' edge-wear apparently ground off, leaving them a strange rounded shape and then pierced with the sort of design usually seen on mid-20th century serving spoons - still makes me shudder to think of them.....

~Cheryl

posted 10-13-2010 06:00 PM            

This thread that Scott started results from a question I had asked him in an email concerning things being done by what must be the largest replacement company. We at ONC had a customer this past year who had ordered an ONC cream soup spoon in the Old Newbury pattern from that replacement company and received a spoon that had been greatly hammered down at the lower end of the handle by the bowl, spreading the silver of the handle out into a delta shape, much changing the appearance of the piece. The hammering was poorly done, to boot. When the customer returned the piece and expressed herself as to what she thought of the spoon they had sent, they told her that that was an extra hand hammering they added to the silver, as though the spoon had not been hand made to begin with. They also sent her a listing of pieces they had in our Old Newbury pattern, and so many pieces listed were ones we never made, or at least we did not use the terminology listed. Our office manager, who once worked at Towle, recognized the names as Towle names. It is apparent that they are selling Towle Old Newbury as ONC Old Newbury. Why they feel the need to do extra ugly hammering to our pieces, I'll never know.

Chase33, we have also seen information such as you mention of this replacement company offering our Karen pattern, which originated with Gustave Anderson and in no way resembling anything by Towle, with stainless utensil portions and the Karen handle applied when ordered. Who makes the hollow handle in that pattern for them to add to the utensils, I can't guess, but they refer to us as "Old Newbury Silver",apparently making a deliberate effort to not use our name.

A few years ago, I went for an interview at that unmentioned replacement company as they were looking for someone for their repair department. The people in the department wanted me but apparently management felt I would be too expensive. But they had a young woman who management hired to come in occasionally to help with the repair department. The workers there could not stand her for she was very arrogant and rubbed the employees the wrong way. If her skills had been equal to her high opinion of herself, she would have ranked as certainly the greatest living silversmith. The butcher job done on that cream soup spoon looks very much like her work.

It is too bad that true craftsmanship is being plowed under by such misinformation and distortion.

posted 10-28-2010 02:24 AM            

concerning your comment:

"And to get back on track, I do not understand the purpose of taking knife handles and adding stainless implements to make basic pieces that are easily available. The big pattern matching website can custom-make (LOL) teaspoons, salad forks, dinner forks, place spoons etc. in the popular patterns and in some case the custom-made pieces are more expensive than the original solid silver pieces. I have yet to figure out why someone would want a Chantilly teaspoon with a stainless bowl (and pay more for it) than just buying a solid original teaspoon."...

Since the silver companies (Gorham, etc) now belong to "Lifetime" brands, and the prices that they are charging are frightening, remaking old goods into new ones is happening more and more.

I am not happy about dealers passing new merchandise off as old, which happens all to often, but transforming surplus knives into pasta servers can be done cheaply and gives the merchant another product to sell. And in these tough times pasta servers sell.

Most of the the new cut work, ice cream spoons etc, is done in presses, or by computer generated sand cutters.