GUEST: I went to the swap meet about two weeks ago, and I was looking for a lot of junk, odd and end things. And there was a lady who had this on the table. She wanted $20 for it, and I hesitated. But then after I looked at it, it said Royal Doulton. I decided I would take a chance and buy it. I knew nothing about it.
APPRAISER: Sure. Well, I myself, since I was a small child loved to go to flea markets and garage sales and swap meets. And I love finding things like this that I don't know anything about that I like, and finding out what they are. As you said, this is Royal Doulton. And if we look on the bottom, it says Royal Doulton England.
GUEST: Yeah, I noticed it didn't have "Made in England." So that's another reason I went ahead and paid.
APPRAISER: Right, that means it's older. By that particular mark we know that it was made between 1902 and about 1920.
GUEST: Oh, really?
APPRAISER: It's a very interesting aspect of it is the decoration, which has monks on it. I call these like jovial monks. And this is an example of that sort of thing. Royal Doulton made a whole series of items that have monks on them. However, there's something about this mug which is much more interesting than the fact that it's Royal Doulton or the fact that it has monks on it. And that is this black raised area, which you've got on here on the front and on the back. In fact, there's an inscription. It says, "Joseph A. Rembusch" right here on the front, which is engraved. Joseph A. Rembusch. That would have been the name of the man that had this mug originally. It was probably a gift. What this black material on this mug is is sterling silver.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: This mug was made in England by Royal Doulton, sent to the United States, and the silver was mounted on it probably as a gift for this man. It may have been sold already with it on it, had his name engraved, or it could have been a custom-made piece. And if we look at the mark, right here, it's very tiny and hard to read because it's so black, it's not polished.
GUEST: I didn't see it.
APPRAISER: But it says Shreve & Co., sterling. Shreve & Co. is a San Francisco silver company, and they're the ones that put the silver on this mug. It has Arts and Crafts style silver mounts, which are very popular with collectors. I would encourage you to take it home and get some silver polish, and polish that silver up and it'll just sparkle just like it was new. It'll be a really great showpiece for your home.
GUEST: You know, I didn't know that was silver. But I started rubbing on this, and it looked like the black was coming off, so I decided to stop. Because I said I might be damaging that.
APPRAISER: In silver, it's perfectly fine to polish it. If it didn't have the silver mounts, it would be worth between $75 and $125. With the silver mounts, about $300 or $400.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: Yes.
GUEST: Oh, that's good.
APPRAISER: It's a really interesting mug, especially because of the silver mounts.
