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 SMP Silver Salon Forums
 A Curator's Viewpoint
 Manufacturing dies of Shreve Silver Co.
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| Author | Topic: Manufacturing dies of Shreve Silver Co. |
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Scott Martin Forum Master Posts: 11520 |
posted 04-15-2000 10:21 PM
  
Do you think any or all of this collection will make it into a museum? [gone from ebay 304055396] I suppose the shear volume (5 tons) makes this too big for any institution to accept unless the collection came with a warehouse and an endowment large enough to maintain the collection for many years. I hope this collection makes it into a collector's coffer and is not scattered to all corners never to be seen again. I suppose someone might purchase this collection so they can sell it off a piece at a time. If this happens, I'd like to think that someone with scholarship would be invited in to identify a subset of what is historically significant and interesting and as such should/could remain as a collection. I wonder if there is enough here for an existing working silver manufacturer (i.e, Lunt. Tiffany) to purchase? I wonder if they even shop eBay? I hope whoever gets these dies doesn't use them to flood the market with items which are confused with the original antiques. What are your thoughts? IP: Logged |
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wev Moderator Posts: 4121 |
posted 04-16-2000 12:31 AM
This lot has been up before with no bites at the opening of 25,000 (w/ reserve). I seriously doubt it will be picked up en masse, but will end up being broken up into lots by type. If that happens, I wonder how long before the various railroad badges, etc start showing up on ebay, too. (Given the price the badges make, it wouldn't take that long to make back the investment.) IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 04-16-2000 12:47 PM
No museum would touch this. Too difficult and not important enough overall. Shreve did lots of important stuff--but much of what's here is not important. I couldn't accept this under any circumstances, much less pay for it--it would eat up years of labor and conservation costs. The Smithsonian might accept such a collection as a gift--MIGHT, if there were endowment and conservation funds included. The problem is that this material is intrinsically worthless, but historically priceless. It clearly ought to go to a California institution; but Oakland is the Newark Museum's twin on the west coast, and any place with that kind of money (LA County) wouldn't be interested. It's sad to see such a single corporate archive endangered; and dispersal is the only probably outcome here. But you can't make money and preserve history at the same time--and it's been tried. ------------------ IP: Logged |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 04-16-2000 12:51 PM
I'm replying to my own comment. We actually own a set of dies for Tiffany's electroplated "King" pattern--because we also own a set of that flatware that belonged to Thomas Shaw, the man who created the first electroplating plant for Tiffany in Newark in the 1870s. But our thirty or so steel dies are more than enough to make any point we need to make about flatware production and design. Tiffany barely deserves the label of manufacturer any more--Lunt in fact makes all their flatware. Such a massive archive is only of value to an institution, not a manufacturer. The Rhode Island School of Design, or its California equivalent, would be an option--but they have the same financial limits that museums have. IP: Logged |
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wev Moderator Posts: 4121 |
posted 04-16-2000 03:35 PM
A very similar situation arose when the last of the material and machinery of the American Type Founders was broken up not long ago. There was an entire room (actually a fire-proof vault) filled to the top with all the hand-cut pantagraphic templates for nearly every typeface the company had produced since 1890. To its credit, the company did try to find a home for them, but without upkeep funding, it was hopeless and they ended up sold at 21 cents a pound scrap metal. A bare boxful or so survive by the kindness of the scrapman, who let people pick through them before the skiploader took over. A great loss to printing history in general, especially so as many proto-type and alternate designs that never made production were included as well. IP: Logged |
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