Valuables

I was taking two pieces of silver to be valued by a different person as the one who’d done them valued them far less than the last valuation. she told me the [candlesticks] were 1902, and I said I understood they were George III. I was given a long explanation about there not being a King’s head on it therefore… but I pointed out that one of the letters wasn’t what she’d written down and she had another look. Very interesting – she then turned to the date I thought in her fascinating book on silver marks and there for some 50 or more years there were no monarchs’ heads, and we found the maker’s name and that there were a pair of his candlesticks in one of the London museums, can’t remember which.

I don’t mind in the least if you can find a market for the brooch as soon as possible – I would have done the same except that my mother actually had it altered for my 21^st present so that it has some significance in that way. But I can remember her wonderful spirit without it, and she would like you to have the benefit now while you can enjoy it, and so would I.

I saw a bit in the paper about a stamp that had spent some time in the sea and was rescued and v. special, and remembered I had one like that – and as I last ‘did’ my stamps 10 years ago, was faced by a mound of bits ready to be organised. Of course over an hour later I find it in a special book for 1^st day covers etc. Unfortunately it was a different country and some years later, but still…