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By Carol Connare
A turn of the century tea set from California, bracelets from Mexico, church silver from the Midwest, flatware from Florida…the pieces come from all across North America, arriving at the loading dock in carefully packed shipping boxes. Many items come from closer to home, from New England, New York, and the mid-Atlantic. The silver plate objects that find their way to Orum Silver in Meriden, Connecticut have diverse origins, but by the time they arrive, they have one thing in common: they need expert care. Orum Silver is one of the last surviving repairers, restorers, and replaters of fine metalware. Silver plate is the specialty of the house.
With over 20 years in the business, Orum’s owner Joe Pistilli has seen it all, from forks chewed by garbage disposals and broken vanity sets to the near-life sized Jesus Christ on the cross in need of replating. Orum Silver gold-plated film star Shelley Winter’s
bathroom hardware and handled Sergio Franke’s entire silver collection, including a tea set valued at $60,000. The trim, 40-something Pistilli has owned the third-generation family business since 1979, but started working here even earlier, sweeping floors after school. His grandfather paid his wages with a Liberty half-dollar. Pistilli learned the trade from his grandfather who opened the shop after working for over 25 years at International Silver Company in Meriden, the company that was once the epicenter of silver production in America.
Each piece that finds its way to Orum needs Pistilli’s attention to bring back its
original grandeur. Some pieces need repairs and polishing while others must be
completely stripped and replated. Today, new silver plate objects, especially pieces made in the last 15 years, are relatively inexpensive and often it’s more costly to replate an object than buy one brand new. Consequently the pieces that come to Orum usually have value as an antique or a family heirloom, versus simple retail value. Pistilli’s reputation for careful hands-on restoration has kept the business alive.
I brought Pistilli a footed silver plate cake stand with pitting in need of replating.
It had belonged to my grandmother. In some spots, the silver plate was entirely worn off. He took a quick look at the stand and told me it had been made in the 1940s or 1950s. Without any markings he couldn’t say where it was made, but its stamped rolled-edge design told him its era. It wasn’t especially old, but Pistilli said he hadn’t seen many like it.
“People sometimes balk at our prices,” says Pistilli (my cake plate cost just over
$100 to replate), “until they understand the process. It takes us several days to take a piece all the way through, and we have to handle each piece several times.”
Orum Silver is housed in a low-slung cement garage at the end of a dead-end street. In its deep recesses, tubs of chemicals simmer, each lined up according to use.
(Pistilli adds a 3% surcharge on each item to cover hazardous waste disposal; many of the chemicals used in the process are toxic if not handled properly.)
First stop for the cake plate is a cleansing bath. An alkali solution with high pH and
electric current running through it removes all dirt, oxidation, and corrosion. Next, the piece is suspended in a cyanide/sulfuric acid bath that reverses the silver plating process, removing any remaining precious metal from its surface. It comes out of the bath a dull grey color, looking much like tarnished pewter. Pieces needing repairs are fixed at this point. Pistilli can fashion new metal parts, replace tortoise shell combs or boar bristle brushes, and fit old handles with new knife blades. He also has access to a small stock of elephant ivory with which he can replace small details on antique pieces.
Next, the cake plate goes to a hand-buffing station. A variety of machines are fitted with different sizes and shapes of buffing pads to bring the piece all the way down to its base metal, usually either nickel silver, Brittania (a form of pewter), copper, or some mixture of these. Using a special pumice from Italy and leather wheels made of walrus hide, the pieces are buffed to a shine. Ornate items with detailed filigree are sandblasted with a fine glass powder. Orum employees then dip the pieces in a series of rinses to ensure each is completely clean.
The plating process begins with a silver strike bath, which applies a quick flash of
silver that acts like primer making the rest of the silver stick. The replating tank is a
cauldron of yellow frothing liquid. The base metal object, the cake plate in my case, is
suspended on a piece of wire and dunked in the solution. Paper-thin sheets of silver ingot are also suspended in the solution, and the electromagnetic current running through the bath causes the transfer of silver to the base metal object. The longer the piece sits in the solution, the thicker the coating, or “plate.” Pistilli generally “quadruple” plates objects, and for this, the cake plate will soak for about 45 minutes.
When an item leaves the replating tank, it wears a dull, waxy sheen. Now it must
be hand-polished and buffed once again, this time using flannel wheels and special compounds, such as jeweler’s rouge. Only a handful of items receive one final step:
lacquer, a clear coat that helps protect against oxidation.
“Lacquer is most useful for brass and other metals that are going to
be outdoors, like lanterns,” says Pistilli.
Finally, each piece is carefully wrapped and packaged for shipment or pickup,
to sparkle once again on someone’s sideboard or on a church altar. “Once replated,”
says Pistilli, “a piece can last for 20 years with proper care and moderate
use.”
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