I was sorry to hear of the passing of Michael Baggott earlier this week, he had been ill for some time following a heart attack last October.
He was well known in the UK for his knowledge and enthusiasm for British silver, particularly early spoons and was seen regularly on television antiques programmes, my condolences to his family.
Martin
RIP Michael Baggott
Re: RIP Michael Baggott
So sorry to hear of this news. Michael was a member of this forum and had a wonderful knowledge of silver, especially that of York, an understanding of it equal to the late Martin Gubbins.
RIP Michael, you will be missed.
Trev.
RIP Michael, you will be missed.
Trev.
Re: RIP Michael Baggott
It is very sad news, he will be missed greatly, my condolences to his family and friends.
Re: RIP Michael Baggott
WHITE METAL: A Story Of Sterling
by Michael Baggott
April 2nd, 2021
Has your pulse ever quickened, the hairs on the back of your neck stood up or shiver gone down your spine? Ignoring everyone with a serious medical condition, this can be the effect of love, excitement, terror, or for me, reading the words "white metal" in an auction catalogue.
Without recounting war and peace to you there basically exists a law in Britain that means you can't sell silver or gold as silver and gold unless the object is correctly and legally hallmarked. If you try to, a couple of burly lads from Goldsmiths Hall will come and break your legs. Well, no they won't really break your legs, but you might wish that they had as they can fine you a large amount of money and may even throw into the Tower or the nearest working custodial equivalent (commuted to community service two hours a week). It's a wonderful bit of consumer protection which arose because our Medieval forebears simply could not stop ripping one another off, every minute of every hour of every day of the week, outrageously so.
This glorious state of affairs means we have hallmarks (and we all love a nice hallmark). Almost everything made in silver over the last 700 years has had a hallmark placed upon it, telling you not just who made, or oversaw the making of it, but also where it was made and when.
Sounds marvellous but what becomes of those few objects that were unmarked, or made abroad bearing odd unfamiliar marks, or have had their marks polished away over time? Objects made in little out of the way villages and towns up and down the country where the silversmiths simply could not or would not be bothered to send their silver to the nearest office for assay, what do you then? Well, many Auctioneers and Dealers will legally fall back on to the happy and delightful term "white metal" to cover such articles and this is where the fun starts.
White metal in a catalogue can mean so much, although it often means truly horrid mass produced modern charms from India or China with about much silver in it as the human body (70-90 micrograms inhaled daily). It can also mean low standard machine made continental silver produced throughout the twentieth century, but it can also mean something else, something wonderful. Here are just three examples to illuminate why "white metal" can sometimes be the most glorious two words in the English language.
Firstly we have to go back a few years to a town hall in Gloucestershire, where a regular quarterly Antiques auction featuring a small section of silver and plated wares was being held. The catalogue was brief, one line descriptions with maker, town and date listed and perhaps the weight if you were lucky and more often than not you weren't. On this occasion it was a fairly uninspiring collection of Victorian gew gaws and the odd worn bit of Georgian silver, with a sauceboat, tankard and a mustard pot thrown in for good measure. Finishing viewing the sale I thought I'd suffered enough, having gone through it all, but as I scanned through the final pages of the catalogue before departing I noticed there was just one lot I'd missed, the description was simply "white metal spoon, estimate £10-15".
I couldn’t spot it off hand amid the piles of lots so asked the porter if he could find it. Everything was laid out on trestle tables on a stage in small cardboard boxes, the spoon was shoved beneath something else, out of view. The porter placed it, well threw it, unceremoniously in front of me, it was after all only a ten quid white metal spoon.
There aren't many moments in a sale viewing (where you always do your very best to keep a poker face) when your jaw drops open. I'm ashamed to admit as a supposed professional, albeit briefly, mine did and it didn't just drop, it hit the floor.
I had lifted up from the small battered cardboard carton a clear plastic bag with a spoon in it, but my God, what a spoon! I took it out to better see it in the light, though now, fully recovered from the brief initial shock, I was careful not hold it too high or proud for any other dealer to see.
It was immediately obvious that I was holding a seventeenth century trefid spoon in my now less trembling hands. It was completely unmarked and hence "white metal" but lets not be too kind to the Auctioneers for missing it, it was clearly engraved "Anno 1682" on the stem and that, believe me, was no word of a lie.
Superb foliate engraving smothered every part of it, the bowl and stem with intricate and meticulous flowers and scrolls but the real clincher was the stem itself. Most spoon stems are hammered up from a small length of silver or sheet, beautiful, but thin and tapering towards the end, this was as thick as a pound coin from top to bottom. It is still the heaviest gauge seventeenth century spoon I have ever seen in any private or institutional collection and here it was in a plastic bag, in a cardboard box, on a trestle table in a town hall, just "white metal" in for a top estimate of fifteen pounds.
It was bought the next day, sadly not for fifteen pounds or anything near it, but for several hundred. Other dealers in the room asked me, when I went to collect it later in the day "why I had paid so much?”. I did not explain to them why I paid so little, so very little for one of the most substantial seventeenth century Trefid spoons any of them would ever live to see.
The second time “white metal”came into play was entirely online, searching through catalogue after catalogue. I had stumbled upon a sale in the North of England. They were largely Auctioneers of agricultural machinery and I'd never, I confess, heard of them.
The silver section of their fine art catalogue was thinner than the satinwood veneers on a piece of Edwardian Sheraton style furniture, twenty lots at best all for twenty, thirty and forty pounds, a single fruit knife or vesta case sadly stood out as the "stars". There was one vague lot "white metal cup £20-40" but without a picture, what was the harm in asking for a photo of it?
Two days passed, several emails sent and eventually a phone call made to secure a couple of digital images of the lot, all probably a waste of time, but then, that evening, a miracle! Not a Virgin birth but a couple of jpegs, which would have had the same effect if the Three Wise Men had all been silver dealers. I was looking at a "white metal cup" which was indeed unmarked, but happily it was not undecorated. The base had been chased with interlacing strapwork punctuated with grotesque masks and fruit, similar to those you might see in the oak panelling and stone work of the large Tudor Halls built by Robert Smythson. This was fitting as the small cup, like those Halls was indeed Elizabethan, made around 1570-1600, though in Germany not in England hence the absence of a “proper” hallmark. Even so and with a couple of dents and the odd knock it was, I promise you, well worth at least the twenty pounds estimate if not a tiny touch more.
The day of the auction I was fit to burst, the internet connection had been checked at least a dozen times, the phone was being kept clear and my hands were shaking with the excitement of possibly buying a piece of Elizabethan silver for the lowest price in recorded human history. Initially my fears were realised as the piece immediately started to fly above the ridiculous estimate, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, my heart sank, but it rose as quickly when a bid of "three twenty" paralysed all the local dealers bidding in the room who were clearly just having a “punt”. Sadly it's not the record, an Elizabethan casting bottle was once bought, a little before my time, out of a box lot, for a matter of fifty pounds, but I wasn't complaining, "white metal" had helped me out once more.
The last time should be a warning that not everything that is described as "white metal" is undiscovered silver, sometimes it isn't.
The sale was again online, though this time in the South of England. It was a large and interesting sale and the Auctioneers, I knew were fairly on the ball so I did not suspect that "white metal" would mean anything more than silver plated tourist trash and worn out spoons were I to see it. There was I thought, after looking through the catalogue, nothing for me, but I then remembered (as everyone should) to check through the miscellaneous and works of art sections, sometimes things could slip through.
One lot arrested my attention "white metal medal £100-150" it was struck early in the nineteenth century to commemorate the capture of a workshop Porter who had been stealing wrought metal goods from his Master by means of leaving them concealed behind an old oven in the wash house of the premises! Numbered amongst his thefts were 3 parcels of sail needles, a pair of curtain pins, 30 gun barrel funnels, 7 bell pulls, 13 files, 3 boiler cocks, the list in the court proceedings ran to half a page and hundreds of items. Having found the case and read through the account at least three times before the auction my heart was firmly set on owning it. I wished it had been silver but the Auctioneer’s had already gone to the trouble of testing it and could assure me it wasn't silver just "white metal", anyway perhaps it didn't matter, this was after all about the wonderful associated history not it’s bullion value.
The day of the auction I bid and bid hard, hoping a hundred, maybe two might buy it. No such luck. The bidding went on and on until I broke the rival bidders pocket at a daunting six hundred all in with the premium, I got some funny looks that day from my family and little bit of behind the back "tut-tutting" could be heard whenever they passed by as a form of admonishment.
The medal arrived a week later by post. I'd done a bit more research into who had awarded it, the "Society for the Protection of the Metal Trade", this covered all other non precious metals beyond the scope of Goldsmith’s Hall, iron, tin steel, brass, etc.
As I handled it for the first time I struck by two things, firstly how crisp all the fine detail was. Usually base metal medals, unless kept in their original cases, tend to dull and wear easily. Secondly was the weight of it, it was VERY heavy. Could the auction house have got it wrong and messed up the test? Could it be solid silver after all?
I have to tell you this time the Auctioneers were indeed right, it was not silver but "white metal". I should have to bear my disappointment that this wonderful slice of history wasn’t struck in solid silver. The Society who commissioned it had chosen a new metal to strike their medal from, a metal that some of their members were attempting to find practical commercial applications for, both decorative and industrial, a white metal called Platinum. It is not the very first recorded medal struck in solid Platinum in the British Isles, only I think the third, though I’m more than happy to settle for that. Perhaps now, the next time you see “white metal” in a saleroom catalogue, your pulse may quicken too.
by Michael Baggott
April 2nd, 2021
Has your pulse ever quickened, the hairs on the back of your neck stood up or shiver gone down your spine? Ignoring everyone with a serious medical condition, this can be the effect of love, excitement, terror, or for me, reading the words "white metal" in an auction catalogue.
Without recounting war and peace to you there basically exists a law in Britain that means you can't sell silver or gold as silver and gold unless the object is correctly and legally hallmarked. If you try to, a couple of burly lads from Goldsmiths Hall will come and break your legs. Well, no they won't really break your legs, but you might wish that they had as they can fine you a large amount of money and may even throw into the Tower or the nearest working custodial equivalent (commuted to community service two hours a week). It's a wonderful bit of consumer protection which arose because our Medieval forebears simply could not stop ripping one another off, every minute of every hour of every day of the week, outrageously so.
This glorious state of affairs means we have hallmarks (and we all love a nice hallmark). Almost everything made in silver over the last 700 years has had a hallmark placed upon it, telling you not just who made, or oversaw the making of it, but also where it was made and when.
Sounds marvellous but what becomes of those few objects that were unmarked, or made abroad bearing odd unfamiliar marks, or have had their marks polished away over time? Objects made in little out of the way villages and towns up and down the country where the silversmiths simply could not or would not be bothered to send their silver to the nearest office for assay, what do you then? Well, many Auctioneers and Dealers will legally fall back on to the happy and delightful term "white metal" to cover such articles and this is where the fun starts.
White metal in a catalogue can mean so much, although it often means truly horrid mass produced modern charms from India or China with about much silver in it as the human body (70-90 micrograms inhaled daily). It can also mean low standard machine made continental silver produced throughout the twentieth century, but it can also mean something else, something wonderful. Here are just three examples to illuminate why "white metal" can sometimes be the most glorious two words in the English language.
Firstly we have to go back a few years to a town hall in Gloucestershire, where a regular quarterly Antiques auction featuring a small section of silver and plated wares was being held. The catalogue was brief, one line descriptions with maker, town and date listed and perhaps the weight if you were lucky and more often than not you weren't. On this occasion it was a fairly uninspiring collection of Victorian gew gaws and the odd worn bit of Georgian silver, with a sauceboat, tankard and a mustard pot thrown in for good measure. Finishing viewing the sale I thought I'd suffered enough, having gone through it all, but as I scanned through the final pages of the catalogue before departing I noticed there was just one lot I'd missed, the description was simply "white metal spoon, estimate £10-15".
I couldn’t spot it off hand amid the piles of lots so asked the porter if he could find it. Everything was laid out on trestle tables on a stage in small cardboard boxes, the spoon was shoved beneath something else, out of view. The porter placed it, well threw it, unceremoniously in front of me, it was after all only a ten quid white metal spoon.
There aren't many moments in a sale viewing (where you always do your very best to keep a poker face) when your jaw drops open. I'm ashamed to admit as a supposed professional, albeit briefly, mine did and it didn't just drop, it hit the floor.
I had lifted up from the small battered cardboard carton a clear plastic bag with a spoon in it, but my God, what a spoon! I took it out to better see it in the light, though now, fully recovered from the brief initial shock, I was careful not hold it too high or proud for any other dealer to see.
It was immediately obvious that I was holding a seventeenth century trefid spoon in my now less trembling hands. It was completely unmarked and hence "white metal" but lets not be too kind to the Auctioneers for missing it, it was clearly engraved "Anno 1682" on the stem and that, believe me, was no word of a lie.
Superb foliate engraving smothered every part of it, the bowl and stem with intricate and meticulous flowers and scrolls but the real clincher was the stem itself. Most spoon stems are hammered up from a small length of silver or sheet, beautiful, but thin and tapering towards the end, this was as thick as a pound coin from top to bottom. It is still the heaviest gauge seventeenth century spoon I have ever seen in any private or institutional collection and here it was in a plastic bag, in a cardboard box, on a trestle table in a town hall, just "white metal" in for a top estimate of fifteen pounds.
It was bought the next day, sadly not for fifteen pounds or anything near it, but for several hundred. Other dealers in the room asked me, when I went to collect it later in the day "why I had paid so much?”. I did not explain to them why I paid so little, so very little for one of the most substantial seventeenth century Trefid spoons any of them would ever live to see.
The second time “white metal”came into play was entirely online, searching through catalogue after catalogue. I had stumbled upon a sale in the North of England. They were largely Auctioneers of agricultural machinery and I'd never, I confess, heard of them.
The silver section of their fine art catalogue was thinner than the satinwood veneers on a piece of Edwardian Sheraton style furniture, twenty lots at best all for twenty, thirty and forty pounds, a single fruit knife or vesta case sadly stood out as the "stars". There was one vague lot "white metal cup £20-40" but without a picture, what was the harm in asking for a photo of it?
Two days passed, several emails sent and eventually a phone call made to secure a couple of digital images of the lot, all probably a waste of time, but then, that evening, a miracle! Not a Virgin birth but a couple of jpegs, which would have had the same effect if the Three Wise Men had all been silver dealers. I was looking at a "white metal cup" which was indeed unmarked, but happily it was not undecorated. The base had been chased with interlacing strapwork punctuated with grotesque masks and fruit, similar to those you might see in the oak panelling and stone work of the large Tudor Halls built by Robert Smythson. This was fitting as the small cup, like those Halls was indeed Elizabethan, made around 1570-1600, though in Germany not in England hence the absence of a “proper” hallmark. Even so and with a couple of dents and the odd knock it was, I promise you, well worth at least the twenty pounds estimate if not a tiny touch more.
The day of the auction I was fit to burst, the internet connection had been checked at least a dozen times, the phone was being kept clear and my hands were shaking with the excitement of possibly buying a piece of Elizabethan silver for the lowest price in recorded human history. Initially my fears were realised as the piece immediately started to fly above the ridiculous estimate, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, my heart sank, but it rose as quickly when a bid of "three twenty" paralysed all the local dealers bidding in the room who were clearly just having a “punt”. Sadly it's not the record, an Elizabethan casting bottle was once bought, a little before my time, out of a box lot, for a matter of fifty pounds, but I wasn't complaining, "white metal" had helped me out once more.
The last time should be a warning that not everything that is described as "white metal" is undiscovered silver, sometimes it isn't.
The sale was again online, though this time in the South of England. It was a large and interesting sale and the Auctioneers, I knew were fairly on the ball so I did not suspect that "white metal" would mean anything more than silver plated tourist trash and worn out spoons were I to see it. There was I thought, after looking through the catalogue, nothing for me, but I then remembered (as everyone should) to check through the miscellaneous and works of art sections, sometimes things could slip through.
One lot arrested my attention "white metal medal £100-150" it was struck early in the nineteenth century to commemorate the capture of a workshop Porter who had been stealing wrought metal goods from his Master by means of leaving them concealed behind an old oven in the wash house of the premises! Numbered amongst his thefts were 3 parcels of sail needles, a pair of curtain pins, 30 gun barrel funnels, 7 bell pulls, 13 files, 3 boiler cocks, the list in the court proceedings ran to half a page and hundreds of items. Having found the case and read through the account at least three times before the auction my heart was firmly set on owning it. I wished it had been silver but the Auctioneer’s had already gone to the trouble of testing it and could assure me it wasn't silver just "white metal", anyway perhaps it didn't matter, this was after all about the wonderful associated history not it’s bullion value.
The day of the auction I bid and bid hard, hoping a hundred, maybe two might buy it. No such luck. The bidding went on and on until I broke the rival bidders pocket at a daunting six hundred all in with the premium, I got some funny looks that day from my family and little bit of behind the back "tut-tutting" could be heard whenever they passed by as a form of admonishment.
The medal arrived a week later by post. I'd done a bit more research into who had awarded it, the "Society for the Protection of the Metal Trade", this covered all other non precious metals beyond the scope of Goldsmith’s Hall, iron, tin steel, brass, etc.
As I handled it for the first time I struck by two things, firstly how crisp all the fine detail was. Usually base metal medals, unless kept in their original cases, tend to dull and wear easily. Secondly was the weight of it, it was VERY heavy. Could the auction house have got it wrong and messed up the test? Could it be solid silver after all?
I have to tell you this time the Auctioneers were indeed right, it was not silver but "white metal". I should have to bear my disappointment that this wonderful slice of history wasn’t struck in solid silver. The Society who commissioned it had chosen a new metal to strike their medal from, a metal that some of their members were attempting to find practical commercial applications for, both decorative and industrial, a white metal called Platinum. It is not the very first recorded medal struck in solid Platinum in the British Isles, only I think the third, though I’m more than happy to settle for that. Perhaps now, the next time you see “white metal” in a saleroom catalogue, your pulse may quicken too.