posted 01-03-2010 08:20 AM            

Just to set the scene I have to mention that there was a large old fashioned safe in the corner of the room and oddly the door was at waist height parallel to the floor and it opened up like a trap door in the floor. The safe was 3 to 4 feet square.

The piece in question was pulled out of the safe, top first with the rest following like a whale being pulled out of a bucket. It was a tall thin vase shaped like so many vases made in the 1880’s, a small round foot, a slight narrow ring and then the vase itself with a narrow bottom wider at the waist with slightly wider shoulders and narrowing to a head sized opening. I was told later that it was made by Tiffany, sterling of course.

This is the strange part chased on it full size was the exact likeness of a man and not just any man. It was, I was told, a portrait of John Sullivan the boxer – all 8 feet 4 inches of him – this vase was over 9 feet tall!!! They said it was the largest thing Tiffany ever made.

Now, please, bare with me, all of this happened very clearly and with great detail and I remember it as though I was there (I actually met Sullivan’s daughter!) and the strange thing is I hardly ever, ever dream!

posted 01-11-2010 08:37 PM            

So Polly you are right, sort of! For the past few weeks I have been hot forging a 100 oz. .999 ingot for an hour 2 or 3 times a week at night. There is no final design in mind and I am just doing it for the “fun” of it to see if I can make something the old fashioned way… So far it has gone from 6 ½” X 2 ½” X 1 3/4” to roughly 10” X 6” X 3/8” . I will up date you when I get some where with it.

The only other piece to add is that near my home in NY there is a place (Boston Corner), where an illegal bare knuckle heavy weight championship fight took place in 1853 with a Yankee Sullivan not John (who was a champion a few years later).