Designer: Albert Saunders (1877 – 1964) Attribution

Item: Sunray Salt and Pepper Shakers

Manufactured by: Weidlich Brothers Manufacturing Company

Country of origin: United States

Year made: 1928

Materials: Silverplate over brass, original box with original cloth lining

Dimensions:  Shakers are 4 ¾” x 1 ½” x 1 ¼”

Condition: Very good. One side of shakers is very clean, the other shows over-polishing and loss of some plating, and one has a small ding as shown. These are forgivable faults for such rare objects.

Description: Here is a very rarely found set of salt and pepper shakers that appear to be designed by Albert J. Saunders.  Saunder’s designed the Modernistic for the competing Benedict Manufacturing which used a stamping process in the metal for the textured design and surface.  According to Stern’s book (see below) the modernist objects manufactured for mass production during this period really were issued in very limited quantities, sometimes as few as only six examples were produced, and a run of 250 was considered an extremely high quantity. While we do not know how many were made it was likely very few as we have only seen a few other sets. Each are marked as shown with the standard Weildich shield and initials and patent information. 

References: Jewel, Stern, Modernism in American Silver: 20th Century Design, Yale University Press, 2005, page 61