Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

This was a piece that was, uh, presented by the Freemasons of Maryland to my great-grandfather, who was John McJilton.

APPRAISER

And I see you have a photo album.

GUEST

I do, and the photo album, which is nice.

APPRAISER

It sounds like you've got some history there.

GUEST

I have a picture.

APPRAISER

Oh, he's marvelous, wonderful.

GUEST

And he's got a nice strong face, so I liked it.

APPRAISER

Very strong, very photogenic. As is, this beautiful silver bowl. Do you know what it was used for originally?

GUEST

No, I honestly don't.

APPRAISER

Well, it's a monteith bowl and that refers to this notched rim here which was used to rinse and cool wine glasses. The stem of the glasses would come out of the edge there. That's sort of an old-fashioned thing so if you don't want to use it for that you can simply take this rim off and you see, it's a punchbowl.

GUEST

One of the questions I had was regarding the marks on the bottom. One of the marks was, um, an "11 oz" on it, which I didn't...

APPRAISER

Yes, that's...

GUEST

I thought it was 11 ounces, but I wasn't really sure.

APPRAISER

It is. Um, this is a typical mark made by Samuel Kirk and he's one of the few silversmiths that indicated in America the purity of the metal and since there are 12 ounces in a troy ounce-- in an ounce of silver-- he is telling you that he puts 11 ounces of pure silver per 12 and that gets you a standard of almost sterling. It's 91.6 pure silver, and that's what that mark means. The mark is, uh, around 1850 but we know from the inscription that it was given in 1859...

GUEST

1859.

APPRAISER

so that's the date of the bowl. And Samuel Kirk is quite famous for this repouse decoration this hammer decoration. All of this is hand-hammered from the inside and the out and it's very, very typical of Samuel Kirk of Baltimore which is where your family is from, is that right?

GUEST

Right, right. My mother's family originally was from Baltimore.

APPRAISER

And I would say because it's a 1859 version of an 18th-century monteith bowl it's very rare and Kirk is very lovely and collectible. And as far as value I know the sentimental value will be huge because it's a family piece but it does have a value on the market and I would say it's going to approach $10,000.

GUEST

Wow, excellent.