A SILVER wine taster bought in Tavistock market for £85 six years ago should be insured for £2,000, the purchaser has been told.
Later he went back to the market and told this to the dealer who had sold it to him and the dealer said: 'Okay, that's life. I've had my profit.'
The valuation was done by Michael Newman, of Newton Ferrers, who holds valuation sessions at Tavistock's Bedford Hotel on the second Friday of each month.
Mr Newman said he had only once seen such an object before in almost 50 years of valuing antiques. The piece in question was a small bowl with a slightly domed base measuring 6.5 cm in diameter, with a beautifully stylised anthemion, or flower-like ornament.
It was made of a single solid sheet of silver with no vertical joins and carried the London hallmarks for 1732 and the maker's mark of Ralph Maidman, a reputed smallworker, or smallscale silversmith.
Mr Newman said it was rare because there were few English wine tasters made at this time, though the earliest one recorded was of about 1690.
'Most of the early wine tasters are French, perhaps because the English were not bothering to taste their wine before they drank it,' he said.
He speculated that it could have been commissioned by someone wealthy and given as a present, possibly to someone with French connections.
'It must have changed hands a lot of times before it reached Tavistock market,' he said.
The buyer did not want to sell, even when told it could fetch up to £1,200 at auction. Mr Newman said this was an outstanding bargain but he thought there were many more to be found at Tavistock market.