A little bit of fun from Refined – see if you can guess what each of these items that we have sold is (or was used for)…

…reply with your answers for example: 1 = victorian hair clippers; 2 = antique surfboard repairing table; 3 = fancy monocle….etc…

We will post the answers in about a weeks time.   GOOD LUCK!

A silver object that is to be sold is typically stamped with one or more hallmarks. These marks variably indicate the purity of the silver, the name or initials of the silversmith(s), the location it was made, and usually the date of manufacture.

So you can imagine our slight confusion when we stumbled across this unassuming spoon…

…at first we needed to confirm that it was silver, it was! Next came the arduous task of attempting to figure out what each mark was and trying to match them with a potential purity, country, city, maker, and date. After continuously hitting brickwalls down dead-end streets, we finally happened upon a likely and truly wonderful answer, courtesy of a genius that goes by the alias “dognose”!

And it’s as simple as looking at the marks literally, i.e. as a rebus…

Mark #1 = GS, probably the maker but possibly the recipient

Mark #2 = an eye (“I”)

Mark #3 = a winged figure, probably Cupid (“Love”)

Mark #4 = the letter U (“You”)

So on this occasion, it would appear that the hallmarks reveal little about the origin of the silver spoon, but perhaps a good deal more about those gifting and receiving it?

LATEST STOCK

Some exciting new pieces including: a quality set of 10 oak and leather dining chairs; Georgian and Victorian mule chests; a good Victorian “plum pudding” mahogany bedroom suite; a canteen of American Gorham sterling silver cutlery; a neat sized Victorian oak partners desk; some nice painted Georgian and later furniture; and much more!

http://www.refineduk.com/latest/

Well finally we’ve progressed from saying “wouldn’t it be a good idea for us to get a Refined presence on facebook and twitter” to actually getting a presence on facebook and twitter…and this alongside a redesign of the Refined blog courtesy of Shutterwing! It might take a wee while to figure out how everything dovetails together (no furniture pun intended), but I’m sure we will get there, and then the real journey begins!

Here are just a few “before and after” examples of the work we (mainly Mike!) have done on stripping and finishing various items of antique furniture.