DC Silver

Chris Trimble Trimble's Tavern Colonial Shoe Buckles, a pewter pap boat and riding spurs To spend a few hours shopping at Trimble's Tavern is an extraordinary privilege. And if you chance to engage Chris Trimble, two things become immediately evident. Firstly, you are speaking with one of the most expert pair of eyes in the mid-Atlantic antiques business and secondly, you have come to a place that has been overtaken by an extreme passion for history. From the imposing and rare large scale furniture pieces to the smallest coin, everything here exudes a past-- and when he's able to avail himself (only because he is in such high demand), Chris Trimble will be your guide. His formal education and a lifetime of scholarly study of colonial American history is instantly accessed as he recalls the stories of how he acquired a piece and why it's so important. You will find his shop just as you enter the small town of White...

In the coming months, CCC is hoping to interview some of the bright minds in antiques and silver collecting for the blog. In this inaugural interview, we sat down with Kelly Keating, the owner of   The Antique Flâneur , and an accredited member of the Appraisers Association of America and a silver and fine antiques appraiser in New York City.  he has a retail location at  The Antique Flâneur . Nate : Hi Kelly, thanks for taking time out of your schedule with clients to do an interview with CCC. We've gotten to know one another over the last few years because we're both 1960's West German white porcelain vases (courtesy Keating Collection) silver enthusiasts. As people in the industry go, you've got quite a formal background in antiques and appraising. Can you tell the readers a little about yourself and what you love about serving your clients in the business? Kelly : My family moved to New Jersey when I was 7 and there they had somethin...

Debates, Resolutions & Other Proceedings, of The Convention of the Commonwealth of MA to Which the Federal Constitution is Prefixed The 1789 title page inscribed by the owner, John James Beckley Once in a while. Once in a while you see a book that is so much more than a book. More than a leather binding and all the wear of the dirty fingertips over tallow candles. Sometimes you find a book that talks and breathes, that lives its history and the history of our nation with it. I want to tell you about John Beckley's book. It almost certainly wasn't his only book. He was a learned man. The largest collection of books in the country at that time was probably Thomas Jefferson-- some 6,500 volumes. More typically, people owned a few volumes and the very wealthy maybe owned a few dozen. As Brian Hoey once said, "Some studies suggest that as many 60 percent of colonial households owned at least one book". And more to the point, "..while many people owned ...

Crescent City Connection now has it's own website! Also at: http://www.dcsilver.com

If you come from a family like mine, you grew up with a very deep respect for the Kennedys. My parents deeply admired all the Kennedys. There was always a light and a sadness in my mother's eyes when she spoke about President Kennedy, and about Bobby too. These men had inspired my parents in the 1960s and that enthusiasm for these men who led our country through change and turmoil and gave it all for us permeated down into me. If my father and I ate at Martin's, we always asked for " the booth ". I always felt like royalty when I ate there in that booth thinking about our President and his beautiful bride, the pride of our nation. And later in life, while hiking in Ireland I was touched again by President Kennedy. I was far away from everyone walking across farm fields near the coast of County Clare. I spotted the ancient ruins of an old farm cottage, surely abandoned for decades. I let myself in of course. It was sparse. There was a bed and a weathered farm table...

The answer to whether you should hire The College of Arms in my opinion is a resounding  NO . The services they provided me were less than worthless, and of very questionable integrity. I would be loathe to level words against this organization like fraudulent or criminal, but taking money and providing nothing in return in every other business dealing I've ever been engaged in would be considered unacceptable and dishonorable. Yet, this is precisely what they may ask you to accept. But, so you fully understand how valueless is the service they provide, I have chronicled it here so hopefully if you choose to wire them money, you'll understand the very real risk that they will keep your money and do nothing for you except provide lip service. Here's some background. The College of Arms in London , "...maintains registers of arms, pedigrees, genealogies, Royal Licences, changes of name, and flags." The heralds are appointed by the Queen of England. This group...

Hallmarks can be extremely powerful and important in silver.  They tell the story of many pieces of silver that is absent on most other kinds of antiques.  For the furniture enthusiast, there are sometimes paper labels or pencil mark signatures, but these are rare.  For silver, the marks are often there, and when they are, you need to pay heed.  The absence of a hallmark can also be significant but we'll get into that later.  In this little article, I want to describe the non-US hallmarks that have been the most important to me in my business dealings.  The photos are pieces I have bought and/or sold some of which are still available at Crescent City Connection in my silver section .  I make a description of some of these marks and use many thematically similar pieces to give those descriptions.  I don't claim these are the best of the best pieces, just items I've been able to trade. For me, at my current stage of collecting, nothing could be w...