posted 12-17-2003 02:34 AM            

Don Fennimore agrees with WEV it is a Ephraim Brasher sugar bowl. Don said he is confident that all of the attributes he would expect to see are there and that the only other test he could run would be to check the material (Metal content). It is his expectation if the piece were tested it would be correct, but does not rule out the possibility completely. He dates it to very early in Brashers career about 1765/1770, which suggests it is by Brashers own hand.

I am tracing the provanance now with the auction house that last sold the piece to see if I can trace the history of the piece as far bask as I can. I am afaried that the information may be lacking as it was from an estate (deceased) sale and the heirs will most likely not know its origin but I have to try.

I am absolutly thrilled... "Smaug"

posted 12-17-2003 12:14 PM            

My first treasure wasn't as great as yours. But if you are like me, then you want to drop everything else and get out there to find the next treasure. June, being the practical one, wouldn't let me drop everything. Good thing. Even so, I did manage to reallocate a siginificant ammount of time to the hunt. Along the way, I did find some interesting things but the next near great "find" took way more time than I ever imagined. I hope your next discovery comes quickly.

posted 12-17-2003 12:56 PM            

Scott, as for the testing, I feel that it would be prudent at this time to confirm the attribution as best I can. Would you suggest anyone in Particular?

posted 12-17-2003 03:09 PM            

X-ray Fluorescence spectrographic analysis can be a great tool but it depends on the skill & experience of operator and the equipments' calibration. Today, most outfits that advertise X-ray Fluorescence spectrographic analysis are in the business of smelting (or do simply material analysis). So their equipment is reasonably calibrated for gold and silver but not finitely enough to get an accurate reading for your purposes. The service may provide info about trace elements but because it is not relevant to their core business the trace info is often not particularly accurate. The majority of the machines around are very small and as such can only test a very small object or a diet/sampling (a small scraping). If you do find an outfit that can do a larger object please know that X-rays are bombarding only a very minute area on the surface of the object. The beam is not really penetrating below the surface, so the secondary X-rays that are detected may not be a real reading of the subsurface. If it is the surface that the detector ends up reading then the results could be mis-leading. For example, if the object has been re-plated, the results may show too high a silver content and no trace elements. I am not recommending testing a sample (diet) because it is invasive and may diminish the value of the object. On the other hand, testing the surface may reveal enough info to clearly indicate that the silver used to make the object most likely predates electrolytic refining (c1875). I believe Winterthur has the proper equipment and they should understand the issues regarding testing/analyzing antique silver. Since they are already familiar with the bowl I would start with Winterthur.