Jan and John Maggs Antiques

An Unexpected Find

We were shopping a massive antiques fair in central England when we spotted an attractive cutlery box which held six early 19th century forks with matching knives. The blades were stamped “shear steel” and the handles appeared to be silver on copper. The twelve pieces were in pristine condition, showing very little evidence of use. We inquired about the price.

The trade price we were given seemed fair but, given the exchange rate for our much-devalued dollars, was quite a stretch for us. We explained that we were seriously interested, but were afraid to spend as much as she was asking.

“Unfortunately,” she said, “my husband bought these and knows more about them than I do. He’s in our other booth out on the field somewhere, so I can't ask him. The best I dare would be to lower the price by another five pounds.”

The five pound discount only lowered our cost by ten dollars, but it was enough to help us decide to take the plunge. We reasoned that, even if we only recouped our cost, we’d have something quite special to offer our customers when we returned home. We bought the cutlery and continued our shopping.

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We returned to our hotel after 6:00 p.m. and decided to do our inventory work before visiting a favorite local pub for dinner. We methodically started to review and catalog the day’s purchases.

Before long we reached the mahogany cutlery box. Jan opened it to admire the six forks and knives. “Oh, look,” she said, “The top lifts out of the box, so you can bring only the tray to the table.”

As Jan lifted the tray out to show me, she shrieked, “Oh my God!”

Alarmed, I turned to see what was wrong. Were they all defective? Did the box fall apart?

Quite the contrary; underneath the removable tray were six more knives and forks! Our expensive set of six knives and forks had just become a bargain.

For more information and price, click here.

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