🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Furniture ID

[stevengugas]

Does anyone know what this is. It's too small to be a wash basin. We saw an identical one at Washington's Mt. Vernon estate. It is 34" tall. The metal bowl looks to be more silver than pewter. It does have a number 1514 etched on the bottom. On closer inspection we do see a shield surrounded the letters AC. Also underneath that is another shield that says Distinctive American Pewter. Surrounding that shield we think it says Melvin Mebreg.Thanks.

 

[Kenosha Kid]

smoking stand, similar to this:

Late 19th Century English Smoking Stand

English Smoking Stand (Plant Stand) with 2 drawers and multiple shelves, 34.5 inches tall, 34.5 x 16 x 17 inches, wides

www.liveauctioneers.com

 

[stevengugas]

smoking stand, similar to this:

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/85722569_late-19th-century-english-smoking-stand[/URL

http://

 

[stevengugas]

m

 

[Red-Coat]

Very nice indeed.

“Distinctive American Pewter” was a branding used by Hanle and Debler, founded in New York, NY in 1933 by Adolph Hanle. He also worked for Samuel Kirk between 1929-1932 and the Kirk Corporation ultimately acquired Hanle & Debler in 1971.

I don’t know if that branding was ever used by anyone else, except for subdivisions of Hanle & Debler operating under different names. “Melvin Mebreg” doesn’t ring any bells though. Could we please see a decent picture of the actual mark? This would be a typical Hanle & Debler mark:

Note that the shield with the letters “ATC” is a generic mark created by the American Pewter Guild in 1958. Any of their members could use it for pewter of fine quality. The letters stand for “Antimony, Tin, Copper”, representing a standard of pewter with a high level of tin and minor amounts of the other metals for hardness reasons and is therefore also lead-free.

If the bowl has a Hanle & Debler mark, the stand itself would have been made by someone else and may have it's own marks somewhere. Try looking on the back, the underside of the carcass, or underside of the drawers.

 

[stevengugas]

Wow, you nailed it! After looking at your photo it does indeed say Hanle & Debler not Megreb. It was just hard to read. We also looked at the stand itself and found inside one of the drawer its maker, Biggs of Richmond VA. They produced reproductions of colonial furniture. They started in the late 1800's until 1975. The Biggs catalogue shows it as a Jefferson Wig holder!. Thanks for your help so much