James W. Tufts at The American Silver Museum

We would like to welcome the James W. Tufts exhibit back to this website (our main 'campus').   For years, Tufts had it's own dedicated website ( www.AmericanSilverMuseum.ORG ).   

That site now boasts a new and exciting direction for The American Silver Museum - "The Painted Ladies at The American Silver Museum."  We hope you enjoy the new exhibit and continue to enjoy our James W Tufts exhibition.   We will be adding to our James W Tufts collection in the new year!

This link (below) will take you directly to the original James W. Tufts catalogues (circa 1896 -1900)

https://library.si.edu/digital-library/author/james-w-tufts-company-boston

This link will open the catalogue raisonné of the James W. Tufts exhibition:

 https://youtu.be/1iRgAgONY7A 

Many of the items on view at The American Silver Museum can have their provenance verified by the manufacturer’s catalogues. The original catalogues are highly coveted amongst collectors and yet, many can still be found at online auctions. In the 1960s, interest in these beautiful catalogues motived Dover Press to reproduce two Meriden Brittania catalogues. You can view the original pages from one of the catalogues here at The American Silver Museum in our ‘Sculptural Designs’ section!

In the case of the Tufts catalogues, you can view ‘The Tufts Dogs’ by scrolling through the linked catalogues to page 101. There you will find a photograph of the dogs. Listed also in the catalogue are a variety of finishes that one could order (silver, or gold wash). We were delighted to reveal the rarely found gold wash finish on a very tarnished ‘Golden Retriever Match Holder’ that we recently acquired. 

Prices for the items are also posted. At only a dollar or two they seem inexpensive. However, a two dollar ($2) item in 1898 would be equivalent to sixty one dollars and seventy one cents ($61.71) in 2019! Would a 2019 host spend $61.71 to house their matches? When thought of in relative terms, those who could and would afford a Tufts match holder were doing quite well for themselves!

Today, a mint condition Tufts match holder fetches between $200 and $350 on online auction sites. Ebay and Etsy are great places to learn more about the wares and offering of James W. Tufts Boston MA! 

THE AMERICAN SILVER MUSEUM II

https://americansilvermuseum.org/

WE’VE MOVED!

While you can still enjoy a sampling of James W. Tufts here at the original American Silver Museum, we’ve opened a separate website dedicated to galleries and videos of our James W. Tufts collections!

Click on this link to visit that site, but don’t forget to come back to The American Silver Museum to enjoy our other exhibits