Paul Revere Coffeepot Could Sell for $1.2 Million
Paul Revere was a master silversmith and an icon of the American Revolution. One of his silver coffeepots, an exceptionally rare piece, is for sale for over a million dollars.
Thanks to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, Paul Revere may be most famous for his midnight ride warning of the approach of British troops. But he was a man of many talents, and silversmithing was one of the most significant. Antiques gallery M.S. Rau in New Orleans recently acquired one of Revere’s finest, rarest pieces, a pre-Revolutionary War coffeepot, and is offering it for $1,285,000.
As a young man, Revere apprenticed to his goldsmith father. By the 1760s, he had his own shop, where he made everything from buttons to tea sets. His clients included artisans, churches, and wealthy families. In 1768, he made his most famous silver piece, the commemorative “Sons of Liberty” bowl, for the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
The coffeepot for sale was originally made for Dr. Micajah Sawyer, a physician in Newburyport, and bears his “MSS” monogram. Sawyer’s descendants kept the coffeepot until the 1980s, when it was sold to another private buyer. Today, only four known coffeepots made by Paul Revere are in private collections, and two others are in museum collections.
According to M.S. Rau, few American silversmiths at the time “could complete a work from raw ingot to finished item, including the engraving.” Revere was one of them. He was even known to decorate silver pieces made by other smiths.
Revere’s engraving skills were not limited to silver pieces. His dramatic engraving “The Boston Massacre” shaped the American perspective of the event. He also engraved plates for some of the earliest American paper money. A 22-shilling note he printed in 1775, featuring an image of a revolutionary soldier holding a sword, recently sold at Heritage Auctions, as covered by Kovels Antique Trader’s sister publication, Numismatic News.
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