Sell Your Durgin Silver Pieces to Antique Sterling Silver
- GREG ARBUTINE
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Are you considering selling your collection of Durgin Sterling Silver Flatware, Hollowware Pieces and other Miscellaneous Items? Look no further. At Antique Sterling Silver we are very strong buyers of Durgin as well as all other antique silver items you may own. We love Durgin's Chrysanthemum, Dauphin, Iris, Marechal Niel, New Art and all the rest of their other flatware patterns.
Durgin was a manufacturer which was in existence from the year 1853 to the year 1905 and was later acquired by Gorham. The company produced some really opulent and ornate pieces that are highly collectible in today's antique resale market.
We pay top dollar and many pieces we keep for ourselves to add to our growing museum collections. We offer free evaluations and there is never any obligation or high pressure tactics used to make you sell.
Our very favorite is to buy collections that took years or decades to assemble. However, we can also give our offers on just one or a handful of pieces as well.
Please give us a try, you will not regret it.
Please Sell your Durgin Silver
to: Antique Sterling Silver and The Silver Museum LLC
Antique Sterling Silver and The Silver Museum LLC wants to purchase silver pieces like the ones shown above!
If you have items that you'd like to sell,
or even just want to get an idea on valuation
please click the email us button for a quote. We especially love to buy large collections that took years or decades to accumulate.
Please send us photos, measurements and item descriptions.
Thanks,
Greg Arbutine
Antique Sterling Silver and The Silver Museum Owner
The Silver Museum buys all Antique Sterling Silver.
Please sell your Antique Sterling Silver Pieces to The Silver Museum!
Article Authored by Greg Arbutine on 8-30-26 - Greg Arbutine is a world expert on antique sterling silver flatware and hollowware items having been in the antique silver industry since 1972. He collects silver for his museum but also loves to wheel and deal on almost any other form of silver items that you might want to sell.
The following is an excerpt from the print book "Encyclopedia of American Silver Manufacturers" written by Dorothy Rainwater and Judy Redfield.
Durgin Company History:
WM. B. DURGIN CO.
Concord, New Hampshire Providence, Rhode Island
See Gorham Corporation
CHRONOLOGY
William B. Durgin
William B. Durgin Co. (Inc.)
Durgin Division of Gorham
1853-1898
1898-1905
1905+
Founded in 1853 by William B. Durgin in Concord, New Hampshire. Durgin had been born in Compton Village, New Hampshire in 1833 and left his mountain home at the age of 16 to seek his fortune in Boston. He apprenticed himself to Newell Harding.
On completion of his apprenticeship he set himself up in business in Concord. He soon purchased the tools of the two jeweler-spoonmakes of that town. Not long afterwards he also bought the tools of a retail jeweler in Claremont, New Hampshire, effectively removing his local competition.
His initial order was given by Carter Bros, then in business in Concord and later in Portland, Maine. This order was for six sets of teaspoons.
During his early days as a spoon maker, Durgin would make up a lot of spoons and pack them in a hand satchel or small trunk and start out with a horse and wagon to sell them, sometimes taking old silver in barter.
By the 1860s Durgin had a prosperous business, producing sophisticated, die struck patterns of sterling silverware. In time, the firm became one of the largest producers of full lines of flatware and hollowware in the country.
Durgin maintained strong ties with Boston, where he had apprenticed. His firm attracted many skilled workmen from there. He also marketed large quantities of his goods through Boston retailers.
In 1903 and 1904, pressed for space by its continuing expansion, the company built a large new factory in Concord. At that time the business employed 300 men and was using about 12,000 ounces of silver per week. Unfortunately, both William B. Durgin and his son George F. Durgin died in 1905. The firm was then acquired by the Gorham Company. Gorham would continue to produce many of the Durgin patterns for decades to come. In particular the Gorham "Fairfax" pattern which had been a Durgin pattern became one of Gorham's all time best selling sterling patterns and is still popular and sold even to this day.
Most of the other Durgin patterns (now integrated into the Gorham line) fell to the way side and were mostly discontinued after a few years or decade. One other pattern called "Dauphin" was revived in the 1990's under Gorham's Masterpiece Collection and did pretty well for a few years under the new branding and marketing promotion of that time.
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