posted 09-26-2011 04:00 PM            

A customer sent in this set of original Gustafson Oakleaf, which had not been give the over-hammered finish, and requested that it all be over-hammered. I don't usually like altering someone else's work, but that is what the customer ordered. I think you can see in the photo that this silver has had very little wear.

middletom

posted 09-27-2011 06:42 PM            

Gustafson "was associated with the Jarvie Shop, Lebolt & Company, the T. C. Shop, and the Randahl Shop before founding the Chicago Silver Company in 1923. Like Randahl, Gustafson committed himself to running a profitable business and saw wholesaling as a more promising avenue than retailing. At first his firm produced mostly spun holloware but then shifted to flatware. Gustafson hired a salesman to call upon prospective accounts and promote his Oak Leaf and Nordic patterns in table silver, which were introduced in the late 1930s."

"Most likely encouraged by the popularity of his designs, Gustafson sold the Chicago Silver Company to his two partners in 1945 and opened Gustafson Craft in Arlington Heights. Like the earlier firm, this concern produced silver holloware and flatware as well as custom merchandise for distribution through Marshall Field & Company, Spaulding & Company, Boyden-Minuth, P. N. Lackritz, and many other Chicago jewelers. Bensebott's Oriental Shop on Michigan Avenue, for example, commissioned sterling silver lamp bases and decorative stands for imported jade and carnelian carvings. Other customers included Swankee Karsten, Bundy & Upmeyer, and Neverman Jewelers in Milwaukee, as well as Georg Jensen Inc. of New York and Pitt-Petri of Buffalo. In 1964, at the age of 79, Gustafson sold his dies for Oak Leaf and Nordic to Spaulding & Company of Chicago, which produces these lines today [note: 1977]. A fire swept the Arlington Heights workshop a year later and put Gustafson out of business."

Here's a pretty Gustafson Oak Leaf server with his mark on the back: