Silver Gifts for Him and Her

Only two shopping days left before Christms but if you have still to buy a present for your significant other try the London Silver Vaults, (Chancery Lane Tube), for inspiration. Here you can buy gifts that you won't find on the High Street because nearly every item for sale is unique, certainly the older silver treasures are. Have a look at our two pages of gift ideas. For Her there are silver candlesticks, picture frames and pretty silver boxes aswell as items for the Christmas table and entertaining. For Him we suggest silver claret jugs, collectables like smokers accessories, and beautifully designed modern silver desk sets. The 30 shops at The London Silver Vaults are open until 5.30pm Thursday 23rd and on Christmas Eve.

The Cocktail Hour. Party Silver and Christmas Gift Ideas

There will be plenty of gorgeous silver on display in The London Silver Vaults’ Cocktail Hour exhibition which runs from October until the end of January 2011. The silver in the exhibition can all be bought from the dealers in the Vaults.

So get ready to dazzle your guests with silver goblets from Victorian times or stunning double ended wine coolers from the Georgian era. Mix your cocktails in a 1930s recipe cocktail shaker or stir those Martinis with gilt, gold or silver swizzle sticks. And get in the mood for partying with ‘dress’ jewellery for Him and Her. The carriage clock is set for 6 o’clock – The Cocktail Hour!

The London Silver Vaults is open to shoppers six days a week, 9 - 5.30pm daily and 9 - 1pm Saturdays. Nearest Tube: Chancery Lane. Buses from Oxford Street. www.thesilvervaults.com

Silver nutmeg graters spice up auction world

An important international collection of antique silver nutmeg graters has recently been sold at auction, with some items fetching premium prices, reports the Antiques Trade Gazette These charmingly small collector’s items come in some unusual forms, such as a strawberry, a clam shell, an acorn, even a cup and cover – it was these unusual shapes which fetched the highest prices at the auction, held by Lawrence’s of Crewkerne (UK).

At the London Silver Vaults, the current specialist selling exhibition of silver boxes includes several fine examples of nutmeg graters, such as this 1881 melon-shaped grater and an egg shaped nutmeg holder dating back to 1793, both from Gideon Cohen at the Vaults

The ATG helpfully provides a bit of history about nutmeg graters, explaining how it was the fashion for punch that occasioned the onset of nutmeg mania in the C17th, and the manufacture of the now highly collectable silver smallwork, the pocket nutmeg grater. Throughout the following two centuries, as the upper echelons of society imbibed the exotic mix of lime, spices and alcohol, it became de rigeur to carry about the person a vessel to store one or more kernels and pep the brew with shavings of the sweet rich nut.

The most expensive nutmeg grater sold in the auction was an early C19th silver gilt example by Philip Rundell which included the cipher of King George IV – it fetched a sum approaching five figures. You can read more about the nutmeg grater collection in this weeks Antiques Trade Gazette (cover date 7 August 2010).

£2.2m record price for English silver

A record price for a piece of silver was set this month when a 300 year old Queen Anne wine cooler fetched a very cool £2.2 million at auction in London. It was originally commissioned in 1705 by Baron Raby as part of his ambassadorial plate when he was Ambassador to the King of Prussia. But it then disappeared from the records until a Sotheby’s researcher discovered that it had been inherited by the present Marquis of Lothian.

The silver 'cistern' as it is correctly known, would keep any embassy party in full swing with its magnificent capacity. It weighs 11 ½ stone and is 4ft 3in wide (1.3m). It was bought by a private buyer from Asia.

But there is a chance left for today’s embassies that may be feeling the pinch. By coincidence, silver dealers I Franks at the
London Silver Vaults last year commissioned a similar sized wine cistern (pictured). Hallmarked at the London assay office it is almost the same width but about half the weight and can be snapped up at a more modest £85,000.

Battle of Waterloo Box in New Silver Exhibition

This summer's selling exhibition at The London Silver Vaults, Chancery Lane, London WC2, is a wonderful opportunity for novice collectors and specialists alike to acquire small but covetable antique and C20th silver items at prices from around £100up to £10,000.

A major highlight of the exhibition is a rare collector’s item and piece of military history: a silver gilt cigar box, understood to have been a presentation gift made in 1855 to surviving officers who fought at the Battle of Waterloo. Made by John Harris of London, the Latin motto on the front reads 'I favour the brave'. On the reverse is engraved the standard of the 1st Royal Dragoons cavalry regiment, an eagle and the word, Waterloo. The cigar box is offered for sale by M. Sedler and is priced at £2500.

Other interesting silver boxes include:

- a Queen Anne commemorative patch box, probably a memento of her coronation, made by Thomas Kedder, dated circa 1702, priced at £695. (Linden & Co)
- a charming Victorian silver nutmeg holder with grater, in the form of a nutmeg, inscribed "D C P Christmas 1882" (42mm long, weight 21.8gm) Hilliard & Thomason of Birmingham, £1495. (Gideon Cohen)
- a pair of sterling silver table card boxes with a cat and dog modelled on lids, and box base to hold calling cards (lid hinged to side), 1907 by Berthold Müller, £3500. (Bryan Douglas)
- an exquisitely carved Chinese tortoiseshell box of the late C19th. (S&J Stodel)
- a rare antique silver jewellery box in the form of a grand piano, a hidden velvet-lined drawer pops open when you depress the piano pedals! London, 1905, £2785. (Silstar Antiques Ltd)

Boxing Clever runs until the end September 2010

See the Boxing Clever picture gallery and catalogue at www.thesilvervaults.com

Chess set made from Nelson’s HMS Victory

Here's a little bit of history, literally: a specially commissioned chess set has been created in collaboration with Diarmuid Byron-O'Connor, the sculptor. The very lifelike chess pieces are the English Navy on one side, led by Lord Admiral Nelson and cast in silver. The French on the other side, led by Villeneuve, the naval officer in charge of the French fleet, are cast in silver and then gilded.

But the the squares of the chess board are made from certified oak and mahogany taken from the original HMS Victory - on which Nelson served - when the ship was refitted in 1905. The copper corners on the board are from the copper plating on the original ship's hull. The chess set featured in the recent selling exhibition called Silver in the Study at the London Silver Vaults and is available from Langfords’ shop at the Silver Vaults, Chancery Lane WC2A 1QS.

Byron-O’Connor is best known for his Peter Pan statue outside Great Ormond Street Hospital.

London Silver Vaults in Best 50 Antiques Shops List

The Independent newspaper's The Information section last weekend (Sat 20 March) chose
The London Silver Vaults as one of its Best 50 Antiques Shops. 'In this remarkable centre there are some 30 dealers in antique and contemporary silver of every kind from tableware to candelabra,' says John Andrews. 'It's a great place to shop for anything silver for gifts both large and small.'

On the panel of experts making the selection were Mark Dodgson, secretary general of the British Association of Antique Dealers (www.bada.org); John Ainsley, editor of ‘Antiques Info’ (www.antiques-info.co.uk); John Andrews, editor of ‘Antique Collecting’ magazine’ (www.antiquecollectorsclub.com)and Fiona Ford of Lapada, the UK’s largest association of professional art and antiques dealers (www.lapada.org)

You can take a look at silver ideas for the study in the Picture Gallery at the Silver Vaults website

A Fashionista's Silver Style

We learn from this month’s In Style magazine that Gela Nash-Taylor, co-creative director of Juicy Couture (and wife of Duran Duran’s John Taylor) is a huge fan of The London Silver Vaults in Chancery Lane. “I … adore the London Silver Vaults. I’m a massive collector” she says in an interview with the magazine about her favourite shopping haunts in London. Her house in the country, which was recently featured in World of Interiors magazine, does indeed display some fabulous silver candelabra on her dining table, which look very chic mixed with white porcelain and lots of lovely glass. There is a wide range of silver candelabra for sale at the 30 specialist shops located at the Vaults, from the highly ornate late Georgian ones shown here, to much simpler styles and more modernist, post-war designs by the likes of Stuart Devlin and Gerald Benney. www.thesilvervaults.com

SILVER IN THE STUDY

The study is a bolt-hole, for the writer, the loafer and the reader. The London Silver Vaults Spring 2010 selling exhibition runs until the end of May. It offers the smart study (or den or office) some fabulous Victorian, Edwardian and C20th desk accessories in silver such as inkstands (like this glass and silver owl), blotters, paper knives, pen trays, Victorian propelling pencils, tapersticks (small candlesticks for reading) and a late Victorian electric silver lamp. Bookmarks and bookends lend a library air. For after-dinner there are drinks trays, goblets, and decanters, as well as bridge sets or board games, even silver dice and sports trophies to reminisce over. There are over 70 exhibits and prices range from around £30 to £10,000. See the highlights in our new Picture Gallery.
www.thesilvervaults.com