Elegant & Historical Silver-Plated Pair of Wine Coasters with Wood Bottoms – Georgian Period Circa 1830

A very handsome pair of  ‘Old Silver Plate’ wine coasters, both showing “serpentine shaped rims” decorated with a linear beading & scroll cast motifs, rising from turned wood bases centered by silver-plated roundels marked with a “Bird & Crown”. The undersides are lined with forest green felt.

This pair is an example of the oldest silver plate process first developed in Sheffield England during the mid-18th century that involved sandwiching a sheet of copper between two outer layers of sterling silver, then heating and rolling (annealing) it into sheets to then be formed into an assortment of table items i.e. various forms of hollow-ware, trays, candelabras, candlesticks, wine coasters, etc., and in some cases even cutlery which is quite scarce.  It was normal practice in making wine coasters to fit the wooden bases by hammering the silver around them.

In all respects these are a handsome and elegant pair of late Georgian “old silver plate” wine coasters. Historically, these would be considered by collectors to be of the finest method of silver plating ever developed, which ceased production with the advent of electroplating in 1840.

Dimensions: outer diameter 6.5″ x height 1.1″