History Lesson
Antique English Silver Plated Egg Cruet For Four c.1900
SILVER SAVVY
A PRIMER ON COLLECTING BY ELIZABETH BETTS HICKMAN
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Setting a perfect table in the late 19th century meant knowing your silver…REALLY knowing it. “You
didn’t do anything right unless you had the right piece in your hand,” says antiques dealer Janice Woods, owner of Denver, Colorado-based Black Tulip Antiques.
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While the Victorian-era craze for a specific piece of silver for every use has passed and our entertaining is generally more casual, a new generation of collectors is rediscovering a wealth of lovely silver tabletop accessories and items and finding fresh new uses for them. Maybe it’s the Downton Abbey effect, she muses.