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posted 03-29-2007 09:26 PM            

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[26-1377]

Hi,

This is my very first posting.

This cane was acquired in the Cotswolds, England in 1975.

The hallmarks (see jpegs)indicate that it is Sterling, made in London in 1883. However the lack of a duty mark is suspect. One individual indicated that it may have been made by a "duty dodger", another that it may have been made in one of the English held Colonies.(hence the lack of a duty mark)

I would appreciate any info that will help me in the identification of this cane.

Thanks in advance for any help.

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posted 04-01-2007 10:53 AM            

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Welcome to the Forums. If you read (and act on) the "Read Before You Post" bit at the top, you'll tend to find help a bit more readily.
As far as your piece of silver goes, if you can't find the duty mark on it anywhere, the likelihood is that either it was lost in the decorating, or that it was missed at the Assay Office. The duty payable on something that size would have been quite small, and the likely profit (compared to any penalty if caught fiddling) minimal. The marks look good to me, and a check on the maker would provide a useful cross check. The book to look into is "The Directory of Gold and Silversmiths..." by John Culme.

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posted 04-01-2007 12:28 PM            

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Interesting mark. Either we have a missing mark or we have interpreted the date letter "H" wrong. The "H" does look a little odd but , given that it's London and the style of the item is in period I see no post 1890 possibible dates. There was a list of excempt items from assay,(like shirt buckles ) but as I understand the rules if the maker went for voluntary assay ,he had to pay duty. The Assay office were by this date striking all the marks together in a block (called a stub) and this mark was undoubtedly struck with a stub. I do not think they ever had stubs without the duty mark on them. So we are left with forgery, very unlikely or much more likely the finishing craftman clipped the Queens Head. - This was defacement - and to the Victorian mind unacceptable. Even an upside down stamp on a postal envelope was regarded as someting akin to an insult to the Crown. So I think the artisan completely removed the mark with decoration. If you look closely there does seem to be room where a mark may have been.

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posted 04-01-2007 06:51 PM            

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Thanks for the swift reply. I was not aware of the term "stub" or how it was used. I look forward to learning more. (Having lived in England for 12 years,I am very aware of any implied insult to the Royal Family, I,E., the "Passion Penny") Only after using a 20 power lupe, was i able to determine the date letter to be 1883, not 1723. The mystery continues---

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posted 04-01-2007 07:29 PM            

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Thanks. i have looked into purchasing "The Directory of Gold and Silversmiths..." by John Culme.". Although as a newcomer to Silver Collecting, I am amazed at the price of speciality volumes.

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posted 04-02-2007 10:38 AM            

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These days pretty much all specialty books for collectors of anything are fairly pricey - mostly because there is a limited market and they need to recover their printing, distribution, advertising, and marketing costs plus add in profits for the author, the printer, and the bookstore. There is no opportunity to sell hundreds of thousands of copies to make the money they all need to make to stay in business and so each copy must include a hefty portion of paying these costs. The insanity really begins when a book goes out of print and the used booksellers take over. In most cases they will ask many times what the book originally sold for, or what you can pay if you are a little patient and do some searching.

There is a recent trend I've noted in two recent collector's reference books in other collecting areas in which I am interested and that I have purchased in the past year. There are some new internet based publishing companies that print books (hardcover or softcover) one copy at a time whenever one is ordered. They use the miracles of modern computerized desktop publishing using commericial quality book printing machines and eliminate all of the middle men. The push a button to print a book technology that is out there these days also eliminates the need for warehousing unsold copies and dealing with remainders. The book goes directly from the author to the publisher in an electronic file, then the publisher pushes a button to have their computerized printing machine crank out a book which is then sent directly to the final consumer. This way the cost of the book to the consumer is kept very low, and books that would otherwise not find a publisher for being too narrow in appeal are made available. I think it is pretty amazing.

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posted 04-02-2007 11:07 AM            

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Kimo,

Not so new, SMP has been doing on demand publishing for 15+ years.

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posted 04-02-2007 11:45 AM            

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With on demand publishing the problem I believe is the binding. Today the significant "run on costs" are paper (which used to be neglible), storage (which was also not great) , and binding. Used to be worth printing a big run, then only binding in batches. Now the problem is that printing a one off is cheap but binding only one copy properly is totally uneconomic. If you perfect bind (there's a misleading name) then the likelyhood is that the book will soon disintergrate. If you stitch in sections then it costs a fortune for a one off. Or has some-one developed a good one off binding system ?

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posted 04-02-2007 11:45 AM            

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And for 'rockman' - most collectors (other than the hard cases on these forums) get by pretty well without abstruse reference books.
This is where libraries, and inter-library loans, are a great resource. The basic books can get you a long way, and you don't even have to own them.

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posted 04-02-2007 01:38 PM            

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I believe 15 years old is rather new in this forum...

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posted 04-02-2007 01:52 PM            

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There is another factor in book cost (in the US) that has not been mentioned - the IRS. It used to be that a publisher would pay tax on warehoused inventory once, but the rules were changed, and inventories were taxed each year, so that it became uneconomical to print and warehouse a large number of copies for future sales. Many books today appear once, just before the Christmas buying season, and then go out of print. This is one reason some publishers have gone offshore.

This situation has been particularly hard on college students, as textbook costs rise each year on warehoused copies (I heard this repeatedly from publisher's reps when I passed on student's complaints); before I retired a few years ago the price of the average textbook was well over $100. Alternatively, publishers bound only the number of copies they anticipated selling in the coming semester or quarter (unbound copies are not taxed), and often underestimated and ran out, leaving some students without available copies. Some larger ccomprehensive introductory texts were even provided in (softbound) sections, so students could spread out their purchases, or omit sections that their professors did not require. The situation has not improved and students still need two or three books for many of their courses, which adds immeasureably to the ever rising costs of getting an education.

It is remarkable that so few people are aware of these hidden taxes - the situation is intolerable, and it is unconscionable that it has not been rectified.

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posted 04-02-2007 03:39 PM            

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Being English I find the concept of taxing unsold items very alien - in another life I was a Chartered Accountant, the equivalent of a CPA in the USA. Under the English tax regime you would not be allowed to charge against income any item not sold (ie in Inventory ) but would be allowed to offset any sales tax paid by you on the production costs. Only on sale would you need to account for the sales tax, and be able to charge the cost of the inventory against profit . Which to me seems the only logical and fair way to behave. What Swarter describes seem very unfair and illogical. And I thought our tax system was weird.

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posted 04-02-2007 05:28 PM            

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I would also like to comment on reference books as a whole. When we start we tend to buy many of the cheaper books on our subject , not realising that most books are re-hashing the same material time and time again. The Germans put it very accurately " most books are three good books turned into a fourth, or fifth, or hundredth book "
The art to find what you really need early on , and get those. You cannot rely on public libraries - in particular you cannot annote them, and you cannot get access any time of day. Also they tend to buy the wrong books anyhow !
For English Silver
Jackson you need, but remember it's limitations. Buy no other books on marks except the known specialist books given below. Some offices , Birmingham (soon coming for the pre 1830 period only ) , Channel Islands, and Sheffield have their best listings on websites, all downloadable. The specialist book on Birmingham marks etc is very poor and should be bought cheaply secondhand, if at all..
Culme on London is vital if you are going to collect Victorian or later English silver, as is Ridgeway and Priestly on Chester.( which covers the enire life of the office)
Thus for English silver after 1830 a budget of say 500 dollars would cover 95% of your requirement and probably pay for itself in a year.
Pre 1830 you would need Grimwade for London , which is extortionately expensive second hand - but so vital you cannot do without it . Gill covers Newcastle and you can still get a copy under dollars 200 for a rare (and useful ) item. I recently got a mint copy for 150 dollars inc postage . Do not be fooled by Gill's amateur production values - the book is a goldmine of accurate and complete information. This leaves Exeter, Ireland and Scotland without a good refence work . Rely on Jackson.
If you join the whole lot together with a several good books on styles etc , most of which you can buy secondhand very cheaply , you need not spend more than 1000 - 2000 dollars. I know this sounds expensive but you will spend more than that on three or four good items of silver. By avoiding buying two or three bad items of silver , and getting two or three bargains - which I can assure is far easier with the aid of a good reference work- will recover your investment in books in virtually no time. We all need luck, but we can always rely on knowledge.
I do not sell books incidentally !!!!

[This message has been edited by Clive E Taylor (edited 04-02-2007).]

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posted 04-03-2007 05:28 PM            

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For all--- The Forum's comments on books are certainly enlightening. I see that I have much to learn.

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posted 04-03-2007 06:58 PM            

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Thanks Rockman. But please remember that on many subject we all have different viewspoints and opinions. All equally valid, although some are more equal than others Clive

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posted 04-03-2007 10:16 PM            

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I suspect costs of these rare volumes may actually decline in the coming years as more and more books become digital. There is almost no point in me subscribing to most academic journals in my field anymore, since I can call up electronic copies free via the university libreary. Some journals do not even print hard copies any more; they are entirely electronic. It is only a matter of time before even the rarest and most expensive reference books go digital. It is whole lot cheaper and reaches a much larger audience.

Tom

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