Posted 21 hours ago
jscott0363
(944 items)
Hello everyone!!
I was fortunate enough to land this beautiful antique silver plated horse and jockey fruit/cheese knife set that was made by Plewkiewicz W Warszawie in Warsaw, Poland in the 1890's. I bought this from a seller in Kiev, Ukraine. It's extremely detailed. It was severely tarnished and took me hours to clean and polish the entire piece, especially the knives. There are eleven silver knives and one gold knife, though I don't know what the symbolism for the gold knife is. It polished up nicely, though some of the tarnish on the knives was a bit too far gone and I was not able to remove the tarnish completely. However, for this to be well over 125 years old, I'm surprised it cleaned up this well. The knife stand is 8" tall and 6" wide. The knives are approximately 6 1/2" long. Pic #4 shows the Plewkiewicz W Warszawie logo with a "M" and a "B". "Britannia Metal" (a tin-based alloy) was used, which is indicated by the letter "B". Though I'm not sure what the letter "M" indicates.
A bit of history of Plewkiewicz W Warszawie:
The firm "Factory of silver-plated and gilded items Roman Plewkiewicz & Co." was founded in 1886 as a branch of the famous Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik (in English Württemberg Metalware Factory) or WMF. First Plewkiewicz performed only the silvering of the base-metal items brought from Germany. Beginning in 1890, R. Plewkiewicz started the production of fashionable silver-plated table ware with colored glass inlets, including home-made items, which constituted ~ 15% of total production. The home-made items, as well as pieces imported from Germany and silver-plated in Warsaw, were marked similarly. As a result, the R. Plewkiewicz foundry experienced a quick growth particularly, due to a well-organized net of travelling salesmen. In 1900, after the retirement of Roman Plewkiewicz, the firm was transformed to joint-stock company, which survived until the beginning of World War I.
For the collectors, Plewkiewicz silver-plated items made in Warsaw are as sought after as the original pieces coming from Württemberg.
Thanks very much for stopping in for a look!!
Scott
Wonderful !~
Fantastic design with the horse & jockey jumping through and the fanned knife holder, this is a WOW find Scott, terrific!
Phil,
Thanks very much for the wonderful comment! So glad to see you stop in!
Jenni,
Thank you so much for the terrific comment! A very lucky find for certain!
Phil,
JJansen,
fortapache,
BHIFOS
Jenni
and
Bronmar
Thank you all so very much for the loves, kind comments and for taking time to stop by!!
Wow! That's pretty cool!