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Hoard of Colonial-Era Silver Found

WeissWeiss Posts: 9,935 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited November 15, 2019 11:00AM in U.S. Coin Forum

On my dining room table :o

Monumental sterling silver tankard
London, 1775, John Carter II*
8.25" tall, 5" wide at base
Capacity/Volume 1.6 quarts (.4 gallon)
Weight 43.2 troy ounces (approximately 3 pounds)

John Carter II was a renowned silversmith whose customers included George Washington and Declaration of Independence signatory Arthur Middleton.

This piece is one of the earliest examples I can find of the so-called "coopered" style mug. Unadorned with clean geometric lines reminiscent of a keg or barrel, the coopered style was a radical departure from the more undulating, Rococo style that preceded it.

Shown here alongside the typical tankard of the time by London silversmith Jacob Marsh (dated 1770). Contemporaries of each other, and separated by 5 years at most, you can see how revolutionary the Carter piece was:

The coopered Carter tankard boasts a weight nearly 50% greater than the Marsh tankard. Its walls and bottom are thick, the unadorned handle barely hollow. If my math is correct, the Carter tankard contains 223 shillings worth of sterling silver. It's "face value" alone, at more than £11, would have represented a year's wages for a common worker of the time.

The hallmarks on the Carter mug show the place it was made (London), the purity of the metal (Sterling 92.5%), the date it was made (1775), and the maker's mark (John Carter II). There were a couple of other silversmiths making pieces during the same date and time whose initials and marks were quite similar, hence the asterisk above. I'm actually leaning toward a smith named James Cramer, but people with knowledge much greater than mine believe it to be Carter.

The engraved top:

Here's an example of another tankard by Carter from the British Royal collection from about 30 years later. Check out the coins of the era adorning it!

We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last.
--Severian the Lame

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