Tagging Treasure

“Not all treasure‘s silver and gold, mate.”
Jack Sparrow, Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl

Its's that time again.  The semi-annual rummage sale will be held at my mom's nursing home on Saturday.  As it has been for every sale in the past nine years, my sisters and I will be pricing the treasures and selling the jewellery and small trinkets.  We don't have a lot of new things to sell but we have a lot of items left from our last sale so I'm not concerned about a shortage of inventory.  We got a few new pieces, however and I've spent some time in the last few days trying to determine the value of those items that include some vintage brooches and a couple of sterling rings.  There is one piece that we've had in our inventory for over a year but as I have been unable to determine its worth, it has never made it to the sale table.

The piece is a small brass easel with two portraits on enamel of King George VII and Queen Alexandra.  George VII was crowned in 1901 and reigned for only 9 years before his death so I know the piece is old.  I've found many pieces of memorabilia from his reign for sale on the internet but I can't find anything like this piece.  I've asked my English friend Emma for some help.  She may have better luck finding something out in England than I am having trying to figure it out from across the pond. I've posted a picture of the piece on this blog.  If anyone has an idea on the piece, I'd love to hear about it.

I have come to dread the semi-annual sale.  It's so much work for so little financial return as we sell most of the pieces for a dollar or two.  Nonetheless, the residents like it and so we push on cleaning, polishing, pricing and trying but inevitably failing to resist the cupcakes and cookies that call us from the baked goods table.