posted 02-07-2010 10:53 PM            

From about 1970 - 1978/79 Mr. Montalewski (SP!!) was the buyer for Gumps or those were the years he worked directly with me. He came to visit every January before he went to Europe on his buying trip and placed orders for over $100,000. which was a lot of money in those days. I left in 1979 and that's when the relationship with Gumps and PB, Inc. ended. Mr. Montalewski told Mel Horseman (the owner of PB) and his daughter Rae Johnson that they should stick to what they knew, the office work, and I should be running the company, making all design and production decisions. A huge blow up ensued. I had already left the company and moved to the central coast of California, Cambria. Preben tried to keep the company going. When they lost Gumps the craftsmen started leaving one by one. The company folded on Nov. 13th, 1993.

Preben is retired from Tiffany's and I spoke with him just a few weeks ago ... he has no desire to do anymore silversmithing. Too bad, he was a great hammer smith. As for the "last of American silversmith" remark that Rae made ... she may have very well believed that because of their extensive search to find skilled smiths to keep the company going. The funny thing is it was a shop joke because Alan Adler said the same thing in a newspaper article about himself. We (the shop workers) always felt a kind of kinship to ONC and Porter and Lewis Wise always spoke very highly of them. As far as Cynthia Adler being a silversmith, I spent a lot of time in the Adler shop as a young man and certainly don't recall hearing anything about her. However, her ex-husband worked in the Adler shop and started his own shop in Santa Monica. I understand he is deceased. Cynthia's cousins, Ralph and Troy were skilled smiths at an early age but were more excited by aviation ... highly ambitious pilots, designers and racers of jets and airplanes. Ralph Wise worked in the Adler shop for awhile.

From the 30's - 50's Porter was Gumps premier silversmith. I have seen brochures/ads stating he would be demonstrating at their store on Post. When I'd go into Gumps in the 70's I'd see 6-8 flatware designs of Porter Blanchard/Lewis Wises on display. In the early 50's Lewis took over the flatware portion of the company.

In the PB Inc. shop if one of us did 80% or more of the work we'd put our own stamp on it. They could have been RS, CS (my little bro), AK (Alan Klukas), I don't remember Prebens ... probably PK, Lewis Wise, and there was Dan O'Driscol, Lee Kutz and a few others.

I purchased all of Porter's tools, templates, equipment, anvils when the company folded including his stamp and his father's stamp (BO9) but I've never ever used it to stamp anything. I have also never contacted any Porter Blanchard customers. I started out on my own 100% in 1979... just an FYI. On the SAS web page I have a picture of Porter's Commonwealth coffee set that I recreated ... it's stamped with my name. It's a design we often times worked on together back in the early 70's.

I am happy to answer any questions anytime. I don't get on the computer very often though. I've put together a list of some of the work that Porter and I worked on in his shop in the early 70's and it surprised me how much a couple of craftsmen (one old man and one young kid) produced!!! Makes me feel like I better step it up a little.