what do you got there I have some pretty
cool silver boxes that I inherited from
my mother when she passed and these are
called vinaigrettes the point of
vinaigrette is to help cover up body
odor people did bathe back then a lot of
people think there wasn't a lot of
bathing you have to realize even going a
day or two on a hot muggy day and
there's no such thing as deodorant you
need one of these
[Laughter]
they were used a couple of hundred years
ago when people had pretty bad body odor
I would walk around with anything to
help cover up body odor but thank
goodness for deodorant and dry cleaners
I'm looking to sell the vinaigrettes
today because my daughter is getting
married I could use the money to help
with her wedding and I think it would be
a great way for her grandmother to
participate in her wedding all right
well tell me about these things each one
has a an inner lid and inside that was a
place where they would put infused
vinegar that had citrus or clove or
cinnamon um yeah they would use the
cover of their odor some of them had
little sponges in them but they actually
dab on themselves and they also carried
them to help keep away disease I say
thank you for the nursery rhyme ring
around the rosy pocket full of posies
ashes ashes they all fall down
uh-huh well they would have flowers that
they would put in a little box like this
and keep in their pocket I say so yeah
pocketful of posies it was supposed to
keep off disease okay and these were
real popular late seventeen hundreds
early eighteen hundreds in England and
that was the one economy in the world in
the early 1800s that could afford just
about anything back in the 19th century
English silversmiths were some of the
best ones in the world and one of the
more unusual things they made was these
vinaigrettes your common silver ones and
today's money a couple hundred bucks
fancy gold ones in today's money
thousands of bucks sounds like a lot of
money for deodorant it was probably
worth it all English silver by law had
to be stamped with the date code mm-hmm
the city was made in the metal it was
made out of and the mail
they see here see this was Birmingham
I know it's Birmingham because it has an
anchor mark on it okay and there's a
handy-dandy internet real quick
basically the way the date codes worked
it was they would go through the whole
alphabet and uppercase you know one
letter for each year this one is really
great marks
this one's 1850 and so this one's 1836
and that's when they were pretty popular
how much did you want for I'd like to
get 3,500 for the collection they could
be worth a lot of money if they're by
the right silversmith you know over 10
they have silversmiths just like you
know that are like brand names from that
time period sort of like we have Tiffany
and company here or Cartier or something
like that you don't have no Cartier you
don't have tippity you don't have Van
Cleef and Arpels sir these are just your
basic corner and jewelry store type
thing they're for Birmingham mm-hmm okay
which is was it where the posh jewelers
were they were in London okay so
I'll give you like 700 bucks for we're
pretty far apart would you give me three
three thousand no no no I mean 700 hit I
mean the problem is they're not the
right makers if we're that far apart I
think rather than I'll give them to my
daughter okay and I'll go like eight the
least I would take was two
well thanks for stopping by again thank
you I would rather give them my daughter
she doesn't have an odor problem but I
think she'd appreciate them coming from
her grandmother
you