Collecting as a Pastime

by Charles Rowed

MARKS

This is an all important subject to some collectors and I feel I ought to treat it with a consideration bordering on veneration, but anyone who has had to put up with the queries I have been compelled to answer, which has necessitated my fetching the step-ladder to bring down plates from shelves in order that the marks may be examined, would have the reverential esteem knocked out of him. On one occasion a lady who had taken a superficial look at my display remarked “What a number of pieces you have. Do they all bear the London mark?”

I was taken aback as I was unaware she was so well up in the subject, but when she informed me she had begun to collect and had already bought a 5s. half-pint tankard with a cross and crown stamped on the bottom, which the seller had assured her was the London mark, then I understood.

When another visitor asked, “Is it all marked?” I replied that I collected makes, not marks, and that was why I had such a variety of pieces, and that many of my most interesting specimens never bore any.

Those readers who want solid books of reference on this point will find them among the works issued by authors whose names are well known and to whose remarkable patience in probing into the past I am under a debt of gratitude. I must add that from information received a work is coming out which will be quite the last word on old pewter, its makers, and marks. I will here repeat a statement which has been printed in almost every book on old pewter since the flood of 1667—viz.: that the early touch plates of makers’ marks were destroyed in the Great Fire of London.

With the aid of my old watchmaker’s magnifying glass, 2¼ inches diameter, cased in horn and hinged on an iron rivet to shut up and carry in the pocket, I have just examined the fine quart tankard stamped “Js Dixon” in three small panels. This was no doubt James Dixon’s mark just after he lost his partner Smith, who had been with him since 1809, and as he took his son into the business in 1824, this mark I think, would only have been used for about twelve months, and must be very scarce. Underneath the maker’s name I see the first Excise mark, “WR” surmounted with a small crown. Next I find an imperfect impression which looks like “NOXO,” but I can make no sense out of that; then I discover a stamp “Crown V.R. 106,” and another with a Crown between the letters “V.R.” also the figures “50,” these all denoting that at least three inspectors have passed this tankard as up to the standard at different periods of its useful career.

Now I came to the most interesting part to my mind, of the outward signs visible to the naked eye; under the word “QUART,” which is boldly stamped, there are the initials “T.B.” and a fine large crown with the date “1823” all neatly engraved with some embellishment. The initial letters will no doubt be those of the landlord of a licensed house known as “The Crown,” and the year that in which the tankard was made for him.

Mahogany Corner-Cupboard with Pewter.

Plate XVIII.

Old Pewter.

Plate XIX.

PLATE XIX

DESCRIBING THE PEWTER

First and Second Shelves. Note the two Tea Infusers in which the tea used to be brewed to replenish the small teapots. The Teapot on the right of the large Queen Anne is stamped “half-pint,” so will no doubt have been in a refreshment house when tea was scarce. The only makers’ names on the ten are Vickers and Dixon.

Third Shelf. See notes on Church Pewter ([page 45]). The Dish by Allen Bright in centre is 11½ inches across, the Flagon is 9½ inches high.

Fourth Shelf. Hot-water Jug. Jersey Cider or Wine Measure. Two Wine Flagons.

Top Shelf. See notes on Tappit Hens and Whisky Stoups ([page 54]).

I have several other tankards bearing makers’ initials and touch marks, and I know they were made prior to 1826, which I notice did not come into the Inspector’s mutilating hand until Queen Victoria was on the throne. I have just taken down two small measures of an uncommon shape, a gill and half-gill. They have had a small raised plate soldered on with raised lettering, “Imperial G. Crown R. IV,” under. They were excised once “W.R.,” and six times “V.R.”

I have gone to this trouble to make it clear that the Excise marks are a lame guide to the age of early pewter, as the Weights and Measures Act which compelled inspection was passed only in 1826. These Excise marks have been fair game for the antique dealers, one of whom, when recommending me to buy some of his tankards and measures, which bore a “Liver” bird as an Excise stamp told me that Lady —— was collecting only pewter which bore the Liverpool mark. He seemed surprised at my ignorance when I told him this was the first time I had heard Liverpool was celebrated for the manufacture of pewter.