Dresser Sets
Repair & Restoration
Sterling silver dresser sets are symbols of the past, accouterments of every lady’s dressing table from another time when the most important aspect of a lady was her beauty. They came in all price ranges. Restoration is all hand work. There are no manufactured replacement parts except for the combs, which come in various sizes. Replacement parts are custom-made. It is interesting to see the variety of styles and which parts have survived from past generations.
Sterling SILVER DRESSER Set Restoration
This set needed a lot of work. As you can see in the before photo (below,) the brushes, comb, and nail buffer were unusable and the mirror glass was damaged.
This nail buffer needed a new hand-carved wooden block which was then covered with a new chamois. All the silver repair/restoration is done first, then the wood is shaped to fit the sterling silver nail buffer. If there is none of the original block remaining, I have to use my decades of experience to intuitively shape the block to match the shape and aesthetics of the set. Nail buffers typically came with a small tray for the buffer to sit in. Often these trays end up getting lost over the years as they are used for other purposes.
The sterling silver comb fitter was very small and did not have rivets. The owner elected to add rivets instead of gluing the plastic comb. If the comb is riveted into place it provides more stability for the sterling silver fitter and the seam along the spine is less likely to split.
The brushes were replaced with new custom-made boar bristle brushes and the mirror glass was resilvered. It was challenging to polish this set as the super smooth surface shows every flaw, however, the end result of the restoration is quite dramatic and the customer was very pleased.
Sterling SILVER DRESSER Set Restoration
This sterling silver dresser set included a hand mirror, clothing brush, comb, compact and nail file. As you can see in the before photo (below) the mirror glass was in bad shape and needed resilvering. Resilvering the original mirror glass is a better option than getting it replaced with new glass. It is difficult and expensive to cut new glass to the correct shape and it always looks too “perfect.” The flaws and imperfections of the original glass are a better aesthetic match to the character of the old silver dresser set.
The clothing brush was in very good shape. The owner decided to only have the silver fitter polished to match the rest of the set and to leave the minor dents.
The original comb was too small for the silver fitter so it was replaced with an appropriately sized plastic comb. It is important for the plastic comb to match the size of the silver fitter because this will protect the structural integrity of the fragile sterling silver comb fitter. The compact and nail file were polished to match the rest of the set.
Antique German SILVER DRESSER Set
The set is made of 800 silver commonly used for silver from Germany or Norway. 800 silver alloy is 800 parts silver to 200 parts copper. It tarnishes to a dull gray color and is difficult to polish. This engraved set was very sentimental to the owner as it was owned by her grandmother “Helga” with whom she shared a first name and birthday. It was shipped all the way from Norway for the restoration which included two new boar bristle brushes.
