The word "silverware" encompasses a multitude of items nowadays and can include jewellery, antique silver tea caddies, flatware, silver handled baskets, porringers, coins and silver medals or trophies among many others. However, times have changed considerably since the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian periods when silverware was in daily use mainly by people who were wealthy or by royalty.
Useful items of silverware were made as far back as the 12th century and just a short time later cutlery and flatware became extremely popular and fashionable. The antique silver items that have survived to this day were made from the same quality of silver that was used in coinage.
During the Industrial Revolution many ordinary people outside of the nobility accrued vast personal fortunes very quickly and the upper middle class emerged. These "new money" people invested heavily in silverware commencing around the 1840s, and were anxious to show off their wealth. In Victorian times people stopped eating with their fingers and began using knives and forks and for the newly rich they naturally were made from silver. During this period English flatware silversmiths became very busy serving both the European and American markets.
Just as today we collect labour saving gadgetry, the upper middle classes collected sterling silver utensils as symbols of wealth but also for regular use. Silver tea services, tea caddies, coffee pots, fruit baskets, sugar bowls; milk jugs and innumerable other items of flatware and cutlery could be found in all parts of Victorian houses.
As can be seen in large antique silver collections the Victorian period certainly saw silver at a peak but at the beginning of WWII there was a remarkable decline not least due the lack of technology in machinery to make the items. All sterling silverware had historically been handmade and stamped by machinery. Labour costs were higher during the Great Depression and even wealthy households began to feel the pinch. They employed fewer servants, didn't throw as many large dinner parties and the maintenance of silver was not an insignificant task. Hand polishing sterling silver was time consuming especially for those items that were ornate and intricately designed. Hence there was a shift in popularity to flatware since it was much easier to polish and maintain.
The value of silver goes up and down as a precious metal but for collectors of antique silver to find perfectly preserved Georgian, Edwardian and Victorian silverware in perfect condition is a joy. There is something decadent about drinking from a silver goblet and using silver knives, forks and spoons at a dinner party. Serving coffee from a sterling silver coffee pot that has lasted for well over 100 years puts some of our porcelain and china equivalents to shame.
As an investment antique silverware will always be valuable and if the price of silver falls, you can guarantee that it will rise again in the future. Unfortunately the demand for silver is greater than the supply and some of the exquisite silver pieces that can be found from time to time in antique markets or hidden away in the attic are sold for scrap and melted down, a process that simply destroys the work of England's great silversmiths along with part of our history.
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