Wm,
Thanks for the tip, gave it a shot but my door saddles are too high and the book too thin.
Not one to ignore an open book, a glance at page 175 yielded some interesting information, a partnership between Andrew Hays & Myer Myers ca. 1770.
18th Century American silversmiths are not a subject that I know a great deal about, but Myer Myers is a famous name and I'd even heard of his short partnership with Benjamin Halstead, but Hayes, nah.
Knowing the limitations of Kovel, I checked Ensko IV and found no mention, though they did list Hays as a freeman in 1769, but with no connection to Myers. I moved on to "Elegant Plate", a two volume catalogue of the collection of the Mus. of the City of NY, which has decent bios of NY smiths. Learned a great deal about Myers, but no mention of Hays, though Halstead got a sentence.
Back to Kovel to check the sources they cite, thirteen in all, including Ensko I, II & III. Bigelow's 1917 "Historic Silver of the Colonies' was amongst those cited and the only one on hand. The book illustrates some silver Torah finials made by Myers for the Touro Synagogue in Newport RI, and notes that they are "engraved on the stems Hays & Meyers from whom perhaps they were a gift".
At this point, feeling intrigued and a little desperate to discover the existence, or nonexistence, of Hays & Myers, I gave google a shot. As a quoted query, no returns, but the pair of names, unquoted, yielded some juicy genealogical info.
Rachel, little sister of Myer Myers, married
Moses Michael Hays in 1766 and the couple moved to Newport RI in 1769.
With this bit in place, it would seem that the Torah finials were made by Myers and presented to the synagogue as a gift, from him and his brother-in-law Hays, as an intro into the new community for the young couple. That some early 20th chronicler of American silver marks took note of the engraved names on the Torah crowns and confused those names with the H&M of the Halstead & Myers maker's mark. And that this error was then propagated through thirteen books on American silver marks, not including Bigelow, but counting Kovel. The theory is plausible, but is it correct? I am hoping you can provide or find the answer.
The point of all this is that all of the books and websites we use contain misinformation, it is the nature of compilation. By your reasoning all of the books cited by Kovel for the Hays & Myers attribution should become doorstops for providing "bad knowledge". By my reasoning, any source that contains much more information than misinformation has its value and place. Even misinformation has its value, if it's out there it can be looked at, evaluated, and hopefully corrected. Tonight, page 175 of Kovel's, information or misinformation, certainly opened an interesting door.
Regards, Tom
ps. That said, dammit, I have to eat crow now. Just checked prices at amazon and used Enskos are half the price of used Kovels. By all means, go with Ensko, it is certainly a better book.
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