Silver Tea Tray Is This Week’s Featured Item.

This is a decent size tea tray which will take a 3 piece tea set but which will not swamp the sideboard and carries Hallmarks for Sheffield 1935. It is a good 14 inches wide excluding the handles and is a good weight at over 33 troy ounces. It has a decorative edge and handles that you can actually get a sensible grip of when carrying the tray. These trays are hard to come by and I had to pay dear to secure it I am afraid. It would however make a feature of any silver tea set and be a special addition to any collection.

To view the full details click the link Silver Tea Tray Is This Week Featured ItemContinue reading

Art Nouveau Silver Dressing Table Tray Is My Featured Item this week

My Featured item to be listed on Silver2treasure.com this week is this stunning Art Nouveau Silver Dressing Table Tray. These trays are very hard to find especially in good condition. This particular tray has some really pretty embossed patterns of winged infants especially those in the centre of the tray and is a good gauge and weight. The inside border has a decorative floral pattern to complete the picture. It carries Hallmarks for London 1902 and its quality is reflected in its makers marks for William Comyns & Sons a really quality Silversmith of the period.Continue reading

Are Standards Slipping? I cannot help but wonder what this Country is coming to. I have always been proud of our National Heritage and the standards English Society had set and maintained. However I cannot help but believe this can be true for much longer. Any one looking at the UK from outside would wonder whether we ever had any standards to begin with. In just the last few days we see the Prime Ministers judgement being called into question over the Emma Harrison Case. The Independent reported

The adviser hired by David Cameron to get 120,000 “problem” families back to work has resigned after a week of mounting allegations about her firm, the arrests of four former employees and criticism of the £8.6 million dividend she was paid last year. The Prime Minister was criticised for having appointed Emma Harrison after it emerged that her company A4e, which runs the Government’s scheme to make unemployed people work without pay, has been at the heart of investigations into alleged financial irregularities five times since 2005. Pressure is now building on the Government to suspend A4e from its £5bn back-to-work scheme.Continue reading

Is It Goodbye To Scotland?

Here in the UK we are being bombarded with media reports of the possible devolution of Scotland from the United Kingdom. The PM David Cameron has offered the Scottish people further devolution of powers to their own assembly if they vote to stay in the UK in any future referendum. However the Scottish Leader Alex Salmond is having none of it and is insisting Scottish people must be given the chance to vote not just on independence but also for beefed-up powers dubbed ‘devo max’. Where do you stand on the matter? Does it really matter if the UK does split up?Continue reading

It Looks Like The Cabinet Are Revolting, well some would say this was known already but this time its over the NHS Bill. Whilst I know nothing of the detail of the Bill I do know that when you get a concerted rejection from the majority of of Health Service Professional Associations and Bodies that something is drastically amiss. I wonder how the Prime Minster will handle Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s NHS reforms now?

Fancy £50 Billion Pounds? Well that’s the amount said to be about to be pumped into our economy over the next 3 months by the Bank Of England due to our weak economy. At what stage will the press and media start trying to “talk up” the economy and encourage spending? With all financial news being negative there really is no encouragement to increase spending and grow this economy.Continue reading

Valentines day – Are You Ready?

Did you know that:

• Valentines Day was first established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, and was later deleted from the General Roman Calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI.
• The first recorded association of Valentine’s Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer Chaucer wrote: For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
• Using the language of the law courts for the rituals of courtly love, a “High Court of Love” was established in Paris on Valentine’s Day in 1400. The court dealt with love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. Judges were selected by women on the basis of a poetry reading
• Valentine’s Day is mentioned ruefully by Ophelia in Hamlet (1600–1601):To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
  All in the morning betime,
  And I a maid at your window,
  To be your Valentine.
  Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
  And dupp’d the chamber-door;
  Let in the maid, that out a maid
  Never departed more.
  —William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene

Its amazing what useless facts you can find with just a little research on the Internet. Well in order to help you find the perfect gift for this valentines day can I suggest this wonderful Antique Victorian Silver & Red Enamelled Heart Shaped Lidded Box I love it so much it is now the logo of this website and our Antique Silver Facebook Page and at the time of writing its still for sale. Now it is not cheap but then neither are you. Gents buy it for the Lady in your life and Ladies why not have a row with the man in your life and then buy it as a making up present from him to you. He cannot refuse you on those grounds. I know this to be true as this is what karen has done to me in the past!Continue reading

Ladies buy your own Museum Piece of Silver.

It is always pleasing to find and acquire unusual pieces of silver history and we have been lucky in finding a complete and working example of very early Victorian Hair Curling Tongs. An American example is featured in a museum in the States and if you click the link you read the detailed history they have recorded for their set. Now being a man I am quite astonished that “The first recorded use of heated tongs to curl or straighten hair was in 1872.  Marcel Grateau, a Parisian stylist used heated tongs in an attempt to curl and straighten hair.  Over time, this method for styling hair became quite popular and the modern curling iron was born”. Continue reading

Sherlock Holmes And The Case Of The Disappearing Tea Set

I do not know if you are a fan of the latest Sherlock Holmes Drama from the BBC but I am. I may moan at the cost of the TV Licences but this series is worth every penny. What I did not  realise was the power of product placements in such programmes. I have been reading books by Alan Sugar and he makes a great play on how the BBC tried to stop him showing his Amstrad phone on his office desk during the series The Apprentice  in case it was seen as unfair advertising .Continue reading

I was reading a survey this week from LloydsTSB Home Insurance. The survey of some 2000 home owners was asking questions regarding building work home owners had undertaken on their homes. Here is some of the data.

• The number of Kitchen/Diners had grown by 50% in the past 20 years – 3 in 10 households no longer have separate dining rooms
• A third of all work undertaken in the home was for work to create an open plan kitchen / diner
• 40% of homes now have a Utility Room
• 1 in 50 have a gym
• 20% have converted a garage into a room
• 20% have added en suite bathrooms
• 10% of owners have spent more than £35,000 adapting their properties whilst 5% have spent more than £50,000

So where do you stand on the Kitchen / Diner debate? Continue reading

At the start of 2012 it is a good time to reflect on the year just gone. 2011 on the Global front was a pretty remarkable one! We saw revolution across the Arab States, the continuing global financial meltdown culminating in David Cameron saying No to Europe. First Japan and then New Zealand shook until huge Earthquakes and who will ever forget the images of the tsunami striking towns and villages.

We saw the exit of Osama bin Laden as well as Muammar Gaddafi and few shed a tear at their passing. We also saw raw great and selfishness at home in the form of the Riots in Tottenham as well as the upsurge in the use of mobile devices and Facebook.Continue reading