Collection: Caribbean

Along with a number of colonies in North America, the Caribbean formed the heart of England's first overseas empire. The region was also known as the 'West Indies' because when the explorer Christopher Columbus first arrived there in 1492, he believed that he had sailed to the 'Indies', as Asia was then known. 

Due to its strategic location and the importance of the sugar trade, it was a battleground between European powers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As with any European colonies, there were a number of gold and silversmiths working in the Caribbean. West Indian colonial silver is often hard to identify, most silversmiths used just their initials or names to stamp their wares (although there are known examples stamped 'Bermuda' or 'St.Croix' for example). There are a number of makers known of Bermudan silver (such as Peter Pallais and George Rankin), Jamaican silver and silver from the Danish West Indies (now the US Virgin Islands). There is still a lot of research to be done in this area. 

We are always interested in purchasing antique Bermuda silver, Jamaican silver and other Caribbean related silver, both individual pieces and whole collections. Please contact us for more information.