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 American Silver before sterling
 the start of sterling in the U.S.
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middletom Posts: 467 |
posted 09-06-2010 01:04 PM
  
I wish to get clarification on the matter of the meaning and alloy of "coin silver". Last week we at ONC had a visit for a few days from Preston Jones, who is one of the silversmiths at Colonial Williamsburg, where he has been working for thirty years. When I was discussing coin silver and the differences from sterling, he stated that prior to the revoluion, as American silversmiths, using English coins from which to make silverware, were using sterling silver for English coinage was sterling. When I mentioned the possible mixture of other countries' coins, he said that most of the other european countries followed the sterling standard, also. It was after the revolution, according to Jones, that American coinage used the lower standard of 90% silver, leading to the use of that lower standard in American silverware. Jones' source would seem to be good as Colonial Williamsburg certainly strives for historical accuracy. What has any of you to say as to this information? By the way, Preston Jones is a charming and friendly person and we were delighted to have him visit. We hated to see him leave. middletom
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swarter Moderator Posts: 2920 |
posted 09-06-2010 02:53 PM
Prior to the Revolution (and for a while after) a wide variety of coinage was in circulation in the American colonies - English, Spanish, French, and others - any and all might have been used by smiths, in addition to old silver items melted down to be refashioned according to the latest styles. Spanish dollars may have been the most common coins in circulation. The term "coin silver" has been loosely used, at first referring only to the fact that coins were the source used in the making of silver objects, as there was no source at the time for raw silver, and the Crown had embargoed importation of the metal into the colonies perhaps to protect their own silversmithing industry from local competition. It was not until nearly the middle of the 19th century that the "coin standard" was formally adopted. Spectral analyses of Colonial and Early Republic silver has shown that silver content varied widely from any claimed standards - silversmiths used whatever was available, often requiring customers to provide the silver - from whatever source available - to be used in making the objects they contracted for. Continental silver objects(excluding France) from the period (whatever their source of silver) carry a wide variety of standard marks - 10, 10 1/2, 11, 12, 12 1/2, and 13 loethige ("lot"), .750. .800, etc. [This message has been edited by swarter (edited 09-06-2010).] IP: Logged |
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wev Moderator Posts: 4121 |
posted 09-06-2010 03:03 PM
His theory is somewhat plausible, but in practice fails. Smiths used whatever stock came to hand and their silver reflected that ad hoc mixture. Large amounts of early Dutch silver, generally testing in the .800 to .850 range, was 'reprocessed' by smiths in the New York area to make goods fitting current tastes. Spanish coinage, a primary source of base material, might assay as high as .950 and as low as .750 depending on the date and mint. Tests done on colonial pieces from a wide range of makers reflects the same variation in purity. That said, the general use of 'coin silver' as an assurance of quality by a smith to his public did not occur until well into the 19th century. IP: Logged |
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argentum1 Posts: 602 |
posted 09-06-2010 09:38 PM
Pardon my side tracking. Am I correct in thinking silver was referred to as Plate in England during the early years. Now back to SS vs Coin. Throughout my eperiences with Early American Silver, I really do not like the term 'coin silver', I was always told that whatever was available is what was used. IP: Logged |
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agphile Posts: 798 |
posted 09-07-2010 08:09 AM
Yes, “plate” was the word for silver; still in use into the 20th century and even today when the context is clear (e.g. church plate for ecclesiastical silver). It has fallen out of more general use because of the scope for confusion with silver-plated objects. I imagine the position in colonial America was similar to that in provincial England in the 17th century. Silver was supposed to be of sterling (coinage) standard but most provincial centres lacked an assay office. It was up to individual silversmiths in these places to control their own quality. From time to time the London Goldsmiths Company made forays into the provinces to check on quality and inevitably found silversmiths with stock that was below sterling standard. This was doubtless sometimes a way of screwing out a bit of extra profit at a time when silver items were sold by weight with a mark-up for the making, but could also be because the source of their silver was not always sterling (e.g. second-hand items, foreign coinage). This all changed in 1697 with the new legislation for provincial assay offices in England. Might it not have been as true in colonial America, without assay offices, that in theory all “plate” was sterling but the practice was very different?
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swarter Moderator Posts: 2920 |
posted 09-07-2010 11:57 AM
Possibly due to the Crown restrictions, the term Sterling did not appear on American silver in the Colonial period, and not until after the turn of the Century when a few silversmiths began to mark their silver with that term. Most silver remained below that standard and pseudo hallmarks were used to imitate English hallmarks (it is now believed these were trademarks, rather then an attempt to deceive, although they may have had that effect). The only local official assay office to enforce any sort of standard (both coin and sterling) appeared for a few years in Baltimore for use only in that city. There was no other official standard until the coin standard was adopted by the Federal Government later in the Century. [This message has been edited by swarter (edited 09-07-2010).] IP: Logged |
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ahwt Posts: 2334 |
posted 09-07-2010 06:26 PM
American coin silver is one thread that discusses this topic. The use of the words coin, pure coin, of coin, dollars, pure as coin and the like has been suggested by some as an outgrowth of the increase population of the cities where silversmiths lived and the broadening of the client base of the silversmith. In the colonial days, the people who brought silver often knew the silversmith on a personal basis or certainly would have had some business dealings with him. The silversmith did not have to convince the client of his worth as that was established by day to day activities. As cites got larger and a middle class developed this personal relationship vanished - what better way to “establish” oneself with a bit of advertisement stamped on the object. These words really were nothing but a form of advertisement, as recent studies have shown that the actual silver content had little relationship to the markings. The best article I have seen on this subject is “From Pure Coin – The Manufacture of American Silver Flatware 1800-1860”, by Deborah Dependahl Waters. This article is within Winterthur Portfolio 12. IP: Logged |
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agphile Posts: 798 |
posted 09-07-2010 06:59 PM
I probably didn’t word my speculation about theory and practice clearly enough in my previous post. I appreciate that a silversmith would have been known to his customers and would have had a reputation to maintain and I wasn’t trying to suggest there might have been a specific local rule about the silver standard to be used. Rather, I was wondering about the assumptions that were made when buying and selling silver where there was no assay office and no quality mark as such on the silver. Would a colonial American silversmith have priced his wares as sterling or have had variable pricing depending on the source of his silver? Would the buyer, for whom the silver would also be part of his wealth that could be realised in case of need, have been able to assume it would be treated as sterling standard if offered for re-sale? Or would any piece of second-hand silver have to be tested for quality? The system could have worked with a general assumption of sterling (or some other) quality even if actual silver content varied, as it did for English provincial silver. But, of course, it is also possible for prices to have varied with the fineness of the silver or for the re-sale value of second-hand un-assayed silver to have been heavily discounted to allow for the uncertainty of its fineness. Either way, I would have thought that customers would want to know the basis for valuing their silver. The same question about assumptions arises for other British colonies without assay offices or local laws about standards. My hypothesis would be that there probably was a working assumption based on sterling in colonial days and on the Spanish or American dollar in the post-colonial. However, I am very far from home waters with this topic and may be struggling in deep water now! IP: Logged |
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swarter Moderator Posts: 2920 |
posted 09-07-2010 07:36 PM
In the early colonial days only the wealthiest could afford silver. The economy was largely based on barter of goods or goods for service, which is one reason for the scarcity of early silver - there wasn't ever very much of it. Those wealthier residents (both before and after the Revolution) who valued the symbolic status of English made (Sterling) silver ordered their silver either directly from England or through silversmiths or retailers who had the connections to do so for resale. Lacking that, they provided coins or old silver of that standard to a trusted smith to make into tableware. However I doubt that visitors to a home examined the host's silver for hallmarks, so for others it was a matter of getting back the value of the silver provided, less the smith's charge for the job. There were no banks in the early days and many people put their wealth in silver objects that could be traced by the smith's marks and engraved owner's initials if stolen. It was only after wealth began to accrue to other strata of society that domestic silver (largely spoons) became common. I think for most citizens - especially those not in the larger cities - there were more immediate concerns than whether silver was supposed to be .925 or .900. In actual fact the variance in quality of domestic made silver could exceed the 2.5% difference in the formal standards, and buyers had only the word of the maker and his reputation as to its quality. As for David's hypothesis, I think one cannot draw a hard and fast line at pre/post colonial time, as the transition was certainly a more gradual one. What might have been true of earliest colonial times would have no longer been universally applicable in latest colonial time. Certainly the most rapid growth in silver production began within a few years around the turn of the Century as the economy improved, and really blossomed after the discovery of the Comstock Lode, the first large domestic source of raw silver. For those who are steeped in the centuries old rigidity of the strictly enforced Guild rules, it might not be recognized how it might be necessary to "think outside the box" when it comes to life in a frontier economy, where there are few established hard and fast rules about anything that can be rigidly enforced on a population with a large number of stubbornly rugged individualists, who make up their own rules as necessitated by day to day necessity. Early on, people simply did what was propitious at the moment. There was no formal assaying, and remade silver was not re-refined - it was simply used. I just do not think it possible to make an all-inclusive statement about silver standards where and when there were in practice none. [This message has been edited by swarter (edited 09-07-2010).] IP: Logged |
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middletom Posts: 467 |
posted 09-08-2010 06:07 PM
Thank you, one and all, for you comprehensive resonses. I had thought that the matter could not have been as clear cut as Preston told it, as there were many coins of various countries floating about, and as many Spanish coins, as I understand, were minted in the new world and shipped to Spain. So control of content would have been lax. middletom IP: Logged |
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