Fake ?

[greenacres]

It says Drink to the memory of Haym Solomon-Unsung Hero of our Revolution-who gave (not loaned) his entire fortune to the cause and died penniless
 A true Patriot
  The facts are true, but is it real or a souvenir

[Oceans64]

I wouldn't know fake from one worth "two in the bush" as it were but the address could be plausible...

http://www.elfrethsalley.org/houses/139-elfreths-alley

"Both he and the house’s second owner, schoolmaster James Hunter, rented the house to artisans and other Philadelphians of the “middle sort.” 

[hosman321]

Wow, that is really cool! It does appear to be in extremely good shape, which makes me nervous. But the writing is the correct style for the period. hmmm I want to know more. I'm a revolutionary war freak, so I'm excited to see what everyone comes up with.

[talesofthesevenseas]

I think a Philly Rev War museum would be the best source for authenticating this. Hosman brings up a good point about the language. I would also look at the capitalization, which was hit and miss in those days, but the general rule of thumb was to capitalize all important common nouns in addition to proper nouns. Which words are capitalized, as shown in your post? Although it wouldn't resolve the issue either way, it might give us a clue.

[Oceans64]

Actually it is the writing that bothers me.  Or better said could help date the piece as not being in the time frame of his death as "s" was written as an "f"  until the early 1800's if memory serves... I guess it could be a Centennial piece....

Edited to correct the cap "s".  Small "s" was written as "f"

[hosman321]

I'll go check my newspapers and see how late the "S,F" thing was going on for. I think I have some from the late 1700's where it was kind of in transition.

[talesofthesevenseas]

Here's an article on the long and short S. What I can't find is if that cursive style lower case s that is used in "his" on this piece, was in use in the 18th century.

[Oceans64]

I found this at Wiki (which is never wrong...  LOL) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s

The long s fell out of use in roman and italic typefaces well before the middle of the 19th century; in France the change occurred from about 1780 onwards, in Britain in the decades around 1800, and some twenty years later in the United States. This may have been spurred by the fact that long s looks somewhat like an f (in both its roman and italic forms), whereas short s did not have this disadvantage, making it easier to identify, especially for people with problems of vision.

Seems to me tho it fell out of favor prior to the 1820's but 1810 is certainly possible...

[talesofthesevenseas]

Looks like that cursive s is OK. Here's some examples from the George Washington papers in the Library of Congress:

http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/maps/farm/farmmap/legend.html

[Oceans64]

Good one Tales...  I just looked at some Census records from 1800 ond I see the "s" was written as we would recognize.  Keep in mind this guy died in 1785....  I'll try to look for some samples in that time frame.  The "A" in Ally looks good according to this site (scroll to bottom): http://www.amberskyline.com/treasuremaps/oldhand.html

[greenacres]

I am also a history fanatic. I've done a lot of reading on the Whiskey Rebellion time period after finding a landfill from the late 1700's and on. Spackle buckets of bottles and crocks, my hands were a mess. I was fascinated with the embossing. I researched the people and how some of the history tied together with the whiskey rebellion. I bought books from the historic society. They were a little costly, but I had to know. So, when I got this cup I read up the info, so I knew it was true. When I was in the city I kept questioning is there some kind of gift shop? But I knew the person i got it from had long past away. She was a collector like myself.

[talesofthesevenseas]

Do you know any of the story of where she got it?

[Oceans64]

What do the ending "s"-es look like in "penniless"...  I have gone through several examples of census records on ancestry using the last name Ross so I see two ending s-es.  In the handwriting samples I have found, ending "ss" was written to look like "fs" consistently until the 1860 census where it was written as "ss" over several areas of the country...

Any single "s" in the middle of a name was written as an "s" - not an "f"...

Clear as mud?

[greenacres]

Hope this helps!

[talesofthesevenseas]

I wonder if the glaze could be tested...