September 10, 2014

Last Owner of The Silver Shop Prepares to Auction Its Treasures

SELLING OFF SILVER: The Silver Shop, the oldest store on Palmer Square, closed its doors a few months ago. But fans of the shop will be able to view and buy the inventory at an auction later this month. The preview is September 22 at the Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart.

SELLING OFF SILVER: The Silver Shop, the oldest store on Palmer Square, closed its doors a few months ago. But fans of the shop will be able to view and buy the inventory at an auction later this month. The preview is September 22 at the Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart.

Customers of The Silver Shop, the oldest store on Palmer Square, were dealt a blow when the store announced its closing a few months ago. But those who counted on the shop for its stock of silver jewelry and antiques will have one more chance to check out the merchandise.

Sal Pitts, the fourth and final owner of the shop, will offer the entire contents at an auction at Philadelphia’s Material Culture over two weekends, September 27 and 28 and October 11 and 12. A preview is being held September 22 at Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart, 1128 Great Road, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., followed by a reception from 5 to 8 p.m.

Taking a break from preparations, Mr. Pitts recalled his discovery of The Silver Shop in 1988, and his subsequent move to Princeton from Philadelphia, where he was in the restaurant business, a decade later. The store was opened during the Great Depression by a couple who had ties to a prominent jewelry store in Philadelphia.

“I was a customer there for ten years, and it evolved that every single one of my gifts came from that store,” Mr. Pitts said. “I never needed to shop anywhere else. I could go to Princeton and get something for anyone, anytime, at that little shop.”

Mr. Pitts moved to Princeton in 1998. It wasn’t long before he heard that the third owner, Arthur Colletti, had died, and the store was going to close. Mr. Pitts became convinced that he had to save the shop. He began a campaign to buy it, finally prevailing after a year.

“I would go with my neighbor, Hope, every Thursday afternoon,” he said. “We would go in and talk to whoever was on duty and leave my name and contact information. But no one ever called. On the last day — this is for real — there was a picture of the store in the paper, with a caption saying it was closing that day. It was a Thursday. We drove over and there was actually a parking space in front of the store, and I don’t have to tell you how serendipitous that was.”

It was only four o’clock, and the store was supposed to close at six, but the woman at the counter was already turning the lights out. Mr. Pitts and his friend talked her into calling the man who was handling the estate. “I told her I’m not leaving until you get whomever you report to talk to me,” he said, laughing. “I embarrassed Hope. But it worked. This very distinguished-looking elderly man in a suit, with a walking stick, came in and said, ‘I heard you wanted to see me.’ So we went across the street to The Nassau Inn and I bought him a drink. I wrote him a check and we became great friends.”

Once he took over, Mr. Pitts gutted and revamped the store. He bought the inventory and the contents of the late owner’s house as well. “We had something for everyone,” he recalled. “The shop was full of one-of-a-kind items. It was pleasurable to share it. I never had an employee who forced a sale. It wasn’t fruit. It wasn’t going to spoil. My passion extended far beyond the revenue. The exchange with the customer was the best thing about it.”

After seven years, Mr. Pitts signed on for five more years. But by the time the lease came up again, he had made up his mind to close the store. “I have other interests, and it tethered me,” he said. “It was time.”

Among the treasures Mr. Pitts is most excited about offering are “a very important Sterling tea and coffee service designed by Donald Colflesh, who was ahead of his time in the late 1950s with the biggest tray ever produced. I found it in the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, and it took more than ten years to acquire it for myself,” he said. Also up for auction: “Two silver trumpets, the largest ceramic pot that the kilns of Lenox in Trenton could fire, a giant tankard with a cherub who has Princeton University’s logo on his sweater, throwing a football, from the nineteenth century, and several thousand pieces of jewelry,” he said. “That tankard was in the shop for decoration, but now it’s for sale.”

The decision to close the shop wasn’t easy, but Mr. Pitts doesn’t seem to have regrets. “I’ll miss the people whose paths I crossed,” he said. “It’s Princeton U.S.A., not just Princeton, New Jersey. Everybody’s a somebody. But I live here, so I’ll still get that.”