1910 AME Bishop Silverplate Presentation Urn
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GUEST:
Well, I brought this coffee urn that was in my family. It came from my grandmother and passed down to my mom, then it was passed down to me. I found out it's from the African church, like, the first African church from the freed slaves, and that's all I know.
APPRAISER:
It's made by a New York company called E.G. Webster & Son, which was eventually bought out and became part of the International Silver Company. It is a hot water coffee urn, but what's very interesting here is the inscription. It is inscribed to a bishop with the A.M.E. Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which grew out of the Free Africa Society in the late 18th century to provide African-Americans a place to worship, because they were not being accepted and welcomed into other churches. The inscription is to C.T. Shaffer.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And that's Cornelius T. Shaffer. He was born in 1847.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And then, at age 17, enlisted with the Union Army, and later, in the Civil War, became part of a medical corps.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And then-- I think this is so fascinating-- went to medical school in the 1880s, in America, as a black man...
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
...and graduated with a medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in 1888.
GUEST:
Oh, wow, wow.
APPRAISER:
But before he even graduated medical college, he'd gone into the ministry.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And he rose through the ranks of the A.M.E. Church to be a pastor of a fairly prominent church in Kansas City, and then, reading his sermons and seeing what a great orator he was, it's no wonder he was made a bishop of the church.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
He was so prominent in his work as a bishop of the church, he's presented this urn by the conference over which he was in charge of. So the fact that it's this wonderful late-19th, early-20th-century engraved presentation urn is interesting.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
The fact that it's given to him and presented to him is what makes it truly valuable from a historical standpoint. And you will see that the spigot, that is carved ivory. In many instances, with silver or silver-plate service objects that include ivory insulators, they're just removed so that the rest of the object can be sold.
GUEST:
Oh.
APPRAISER:
That doesn't really negate the value that much, because we all realize it's the only way to sell an object that does incorporate ivory. I think if this were to come up at auction, it would carry an auction estimate of in the neighborhood of $800 to $1,200.
GUEST:
Oh, wow-- wow! That's awesome.
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