Antique Silver

Photo Credit: CJ Antiques Ltd

17th Century Silver Gilt Snuff Box

Buy It Now Price: $865 (price as of 2018; item no longer available)

Pros:

-This 17th century silver gilt snuff box has been made from two large silver coins: an Austrian Taler of Ferdinand II and an English Crown of James I.

-This unusual round antique box measures 45 mm (1.77 inches) wide by 17 mm (0.67 inches) deep and contains 85.3 grams (2.74 troy ounces) of solid silver alloy.

-Inhaling very fine tobacco dust was popular among European nobility from the early 17th century to the mid 19th century.  As a result, lavish snuff boxes were the iPhones of their day – a must for any well-to-do gentleman or lady of high class.  These small silver boxes were typically gold-gilt in order to resist the corrosive effects of tobacco.  Antique snuff boxes are often similar in construction to vinaigrettes, which were intended to carry perfume soaked sponges instead of tobacco.

-A modern buyer could use this extravagant antique snuff box to as a pill box, jewelry box or trinket box today.

-The top of this silver gilt snuff box features a silver Taler coin of Ferdinand II, Archduke of Further Austria and the Tyrol.  Ferdinand II, a scion of the Hapsburgs, ruled from 1564 to 1595.  He was also the younger brother of the sitting Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian II.

-The bottom of this 17th century silver box is made from a silver Crown of James I, the King of England from 1603 to 1625.  James was originally the king of Scotland and it was during his reign that the monarchies of England and Scotland were first combined in what would later become the United Kingdom.

-Crowns and Talers were massive silver coins that weighed in at a hefty 30 grams (0.96 troy ounces) each.  These large silver coins had considerable buying power during the 16th and 17th centuries.

-This snuff box would have contained about 14 shillings worth of silver when measured in 17th century English currency.  To put this substantial sum of money in context, it would have been enough to buy 175 stout oak boards or 168 pounds (76 kilos) of prime grade beef, or rent a room at an inn for 42 days straight.

-17th century antique silver is very rare today.  There were never very large amounts of it made and nearly all of that has been melted down over the intervening centuries.  The buyer of this fine silver gilt snuff box will be in very exclusive company.

-This beautiful old silver box was fire gilt both inside and out.  Fire gilding, also known as mercury gilding, was the original and best way to gold-plate metal.  Unfortunately, fire gilding died out in the mid 19th century with the rise of cheaper, but inferior electroplating methods.

-At only $865, this 17th century silver gilt snuff box is an investment-grade piece of early antique silver available to the connoisseur at a modest price.

Cons:

-While this antique silver box is in exceptional condition for being over 300 years old, there is one old, inconspicuous file mark on the side.  This was undoubtedly done centuries ago by someone who wanted to test whether the box was solid silver (which it is).

-Although the form is unmistakably old, I am unable to determine where this interesting silver gilt snuff box was made.  Because it has a coin from both England and Austria, it is natural to conclude that it was made in one of those two locations (although Southern Germany, which was also part of the Hapsburg domain, is another logical choice).  In any case, I feel confident that it was fabricated in Europe sometime between about 1660 and 1720.

-This 17th century silver gilt snuff box is not hallmarked.  It wasn’t unusual for small, personal items made from precious metals to lack hallmarks during this period.  However, hallmarks would have helped us determine its country of origin and age more precisely.

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