I love antique silver. It combines beauty, utility and intrinsic value in a way that almost no other antique can. So it shouldn't be surprising that I occasionally browse eBay, Etsy and other online platforms looking for the perfect antique silver investment.
What I intend to do in this article is walk you through my thought process as I hunt, research and purchase my latest fine antique silver investment. In some ways, this article will be similar to my spotlight posts, where I examine the investment pros and cons of a specific antique or vintage item.
My process starts with looking through hundreds of antique listings online. Of course I narrow down the search to a specific category beforehand. In this instance, I was interested in vintage silver cigarette cases.
Cigarette cases were popular from the late 19th century through the 1960s. Smoking exploded in popularity during the 20th century and cigarette cases quickly became a de rigueur personal luxury accessory - much like today's smartphone. As a result, a lot of high-end, solid-silver cigarette cases have survived. Better yet, the nicest ones were decorated with chased or engraved designs and occasionally accented with applied gold monograms or bejeweled thumb-catches.
High-end cigarette cases are premier investment-grade antiques. But the market for them is in the dumps right now for a few reasons. First, there is more supply than demand because a smaller percentage of the population smokes these days.
In addition, relatively few people have figured out that vintage cigarette cases are an easy and stylish way to store business cards, credit cards, money, pills, or any other small items you might have. This keeps demand down and prices low.
Finally, the poor economy has crippled discretionary spending in the antique market. There is far less casual and impulse purchasing in the industry than before the 2008-2009 recession, which suppresses the prices of many antiques.
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In other words, these are ideal conditions for me (or you) to make an antique silver investment. You always want to buy when prices are low and an asset class is hated; not when it is popular and expensive.
So I visited eBay and began looking through their listings. First, I narrowed my price range to between $50 and $200 and excluded keywords like "silver plate" and "silver plated". This helped to eliminate the riff-raff cigarette cases that aren't solid silver. It also excluded pieces where the seller was asking for an unrealistically high wishing price.
What my search did show was the meaty middle, where there were dozens of high quality silver cigarette cases at reasonable prices. A good rule of thumb is that decent specimens start at around $60, although these low prices can usually only be found in an auction format sale. A good selection of really nice cases is available (in both auction and buy-it-now formats) between $100 and $200. Of course, the best of the best can be more expensive than $200.
Once I had narrowed my search results, I started looking at listings. And I looked…And I looked…And I looked some more.
I typically search through about a thousand listings to find 10 that I like. Out of those 10, I might seriously consider purchasing 1 or 2. That is an ultimate hit rate of 0.1% to 0.2%. In other words, 1 out of 1,000 antiques qualifies as both investable and attractively priced.
In this instance, I saved a few that I liked to my eBay watch list. But I was still on the fence about making a purchase. A couple days later I woke up to a 15% eBay flash sale and decided it was time to make a move on my antique silver investment.
I eventually zeroed in one vintage silver cigarette case in particular: an elegant Mid-Century Modern Danish case by the firm of P. Hertz with a buy-it-now price of $135.
The eponymous company was founded in Copenhagen in 1834 by the Danish silversmith Peter Hertz. After winning a series of international jewelry/silverware exhibitions (Malmo in 1881, Liverpool in 1886, Paris in 1889 and Chicago in 1895), P. Hertz went on to become the official jeweler to the Danish Royal Family in 1906. P. Hertz is still around today and continues to be the Royal Danish court jeweler. However, the company ceased producing silver items in its factories in 1960.
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This vintage Danish piece was not only stunning, but also in a near-perfect state of preservation - a true antique silver investment. The condition was superb, with no noticeable dents, a close, tight fitting lid and a completely intact hinge. These are all common problem areas for vintage cigarette cases, but were problem-free on this example. Even the original elastic band that held the cigarettes in place was still in good shape.
The case featured a linear design motif consisting of parallel horizontal lines across the middle of the case flanked by shorter vertical lines towards the top and bottom. The overall effect was quite appealing, while also being absolutely typical of the 1930s and 1940s.
The hallmarks were also appropriate for the period and country of origin. The case had the "P.HERTZ" mark, along with the company's logo (a crown). The piece also had the assay master's initials "JS" (Johannes Siggaard), which should appear on every hallmarked piece of Danish silver made between 1932 and 1960. And finally, the case had the Danish "Three Tower Mark", which guaranteed a minimum purity of .826 fine silver (although higher purity silver sometimes bore the mark, especially in the mid 20th century). Both the Three Tower Mark and the assay master's initials were double-stamped (once on each half of the case), indicating that the two parts were independently tested for their purity.
However, the most impressive attribute of this Danish antique silver investment was the build quality. The case was very solid, weighing in at a hefty 206 grams - more than 6.6 troy ounces. This gave it a melt value of around $80, which means I would only be paying $55 for the artistic premium of the piece.
And it had a lot of artistic premium.
It was obvious that an incredible amount of care had gone into the creation of this handheld masterpiece. The case's linear design was chased in high relief and perfectly executed - a sure sign of quality.
In addition, the interior rim had its own engine-turned diamond pattern (visible in the photo below). This was interesting because the decoration wasn't visible unless the case was open. The average silversmith will cut corners on the underside or non-visible parts of an item. Only a truly dedicated silversmith working on a premium piece will bother to add decorative highlights to a hidden area like the inside rim of a case.
When P. Hertz says they are the official jeweler to Danish royalty, they aren't kidding. These guys made a stunningly good silver cigarette case - one that would definitely qualify as an antique silver investment.
The buy-it-now price for the piece was $135, but after deducting the 15% eBay promo code, I was down to $114.75. I felt that this was a steal.
The only potential issue was that the seller was an antique dealer located in Moscow's Tagansky District. As a result, the shipping was a prodigious $22. The high shipping cost did give me pause, but then I asked myself, what would a reasonable shipping cost have been for something located halfway around the world? $10? $12?
Would I really bust the deal over a shipping fee that I felt was $10 too high?
The answer to that was no. I chose to swallow the uncomfortably high shipping charges because the extra cost was trivial compared to the future return potential of this gorgeous antique silver investment. At a grand total of just $136.75 delivered, I felt it was still worth every penny.
We live in a very unusual time where it is possible to buy rare and valuable tangible objects for stupidly low prices - sometimes as little as $100 or $200. This can make it easy to become complacent, leading us to mistakenly believe that the good deals will always be available.
I assure you however, that they will not. Someday, prices will skyrocket and the ridiculously low prices for fine, investment-grade antiques will disappear. When that day finally comes (probably in the not too distant future), we will all wish we had bought more when we had the chance.
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