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About Gold Dishes And Flatware
Were you born with a silver spoon in your mouth? If so, I hope it was gilt, because you now have the option to trade in your gilt tableware to Cash4Gold! Many people have come to us seeking to sell old-fashioned pieces that they’ve inherited but have no use for, especially during these tough economic times. After all, there isn’t much use for gold dishes and spoons when there’s no food to accompany them. Let Cash4Gold set the table with cold, hard cash that you can use to live!
Of course, you may have held on to your gold flatware and gilded dish wares until now because of their sentimental value. If you are considering letting go of pieces that you don’t really use because you know that they can bring helpful economic assistance to you and your family, we at Cash4Gold hope that you will consider allowing us to give you a free appraisal of the gold content of your pieces so that you can make a thoroughly educated decision. After all, upon reflection, you may find that Grandma would rather have sent Junior through another semester in college than have her silver tea service spend eternity on your mantle.
Without doubt, golden and gilt flatware and dishware have long been associated with opulent luxury and style, and have been a favorite family heirloom as long as gold has been refined by humans. The ancient cultures of modern-day Egypt, Greece, India, and Italy increasingly used precious metals in the creation and adornment of their utensils as methods of refinement of precious metals and artisan techniques developed over time. The design and metallurgy of the utensil became an important symbol of the owner’s status, because their intricate designs were the life’s work of their creators. Since it was unlikely that an individual or a family might own very many utensils due to the intense work that went into them and their consequential expense, their workmanship would say a lot about the quality of life that their owners enjoyed, and they might be passed down for generations. Even today, many families possess both an “everyday” set of dishes and utensils and one (or more) additional “heirloom” sets that may have been inherited from loved ones. Consequentially, many families rightly place a strong sentimental value on their best flatware and serving pieces.
This was certainly the case in the classical world of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, where the knives and spoons of the nobility were made of precious materials. Their hilts and handles were frequently inlayed with carvings, or inlayed precious or semi-precious gemstones. The Romans also utilized two-tined skewers, predecessors to the forks that we use today. The people of most cultures, however, limited their use of eating utensils to a versatile knife, whose quality, again, was a strong indicator of its owner’s class and status. Forks became commonly used in Italy during the mid-1500s, and became prevalent in western Europe over the next two hundred years. During the same time period, spoons were making the transition from being solely used in the kitchen to being etiquette-indispensable table utensils. Many people might be surprised to know that what we consider to be modern day spoons were not on the scene until the mid-1700s, considering how vital they are to today’s place setting.
The use of precious metals to make and adorn utensils and dishes is as old as the occurrence of the utensils themselves. The quantity and intricacy of the precious metals in the tableware was a statement of the owner’s rank in society. Styles in flatware usually follow the general artistic tenor of the times, but it was the tableware from the Baroque era that reached perhaps the highest timbre of opulence. Fashioned of solid silver, vermeil (gold-plated silver), and even solid gold in a frothy and heavily ornamented style, Baroque pieces later went out of vogue as being excessively sumptuous during the French Revolution, when the excesses of Louis XIV’s court became symbolic of the undemocratic division between rich and poor. Consequentially, later Rococo and Neoclassical pieces were usually more restrained and more daintily elegant than oppressively rich.
When, in 1743, the Sheffield plating process was discovered, the price of flatware decreased sharply as artisans began plating over copper-based utensils with a thin overlay of silver. In addition to reducing the price of tableware, this process made possible a fantastic proliferation of designs and styles, some of which are still produced in England to this day. Aristocratic designs usually included a family crest, while designs for regular folks became more ergonomic, with curved handles and deeper bowls for spoons.
Modern designs for flatware and serving pieces are less likely to include gold because silver tones are currently more in vogue. Consequentially, unless one is willing to spend a great deal of time polishing flatware, many people are happy to select from the positively dizzying array of elegant designs available in every shade, hue and tone of silver, and made out of “gilt-free”, dishwasher-safe stainless steel. Since gilt designs will literally wash down the drain over time, rubbing off a little every time they are washed, many families tell us here at Cash4Gold that they are selling their gilt flatware because they are seeking more practical utensils. Since there are so many modern options out there, these families are glad to reap the financial rewards of doing so without having to sacrifice an iota of style.
Value OF Gold Serving Pieces
You may be surprised to discover the value of any old serving pieces that may be collecting dust on a display cabinet or packed away in your attic or garage. Older pieces in particular tend to have higher precious metal content, but you may be reluctant to actually use them as serving pieces for your family’s cuisine because you are unsure of their safety. The presence of polish residue or even lead or other heavy metal content might be a concern for you, or perhaps you are wary of having to re-polish all of that silver after the dinner party is over and the guests have gone home. In either case, Cash4Gold is ready to provide you with the resources you need to turn these unused serving pieces into money that you can use in any way you want. We will have our experts evaluate the gold and silver content of your flatware and serving pieces, and you can have a check for the market value of the unalloyed content within a matter of days. With gold prices at an all-time high, you may quickly find yourself digging through your storage spaces for even more buried treasure!
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