Chats on Old Copper and Brass

by Fred. W. Burgess

Dealers' Shops.

The shops of dealers supplement the auction-rooms. They are partly fed from them and partly by the persistent search ever going on for objects in which their owners have little interest and are willing to part with for a consideration—not always the "top price." The greater popularity of curio-hunting has caused a vigorous search of attic and cellar at the instance of dealers as well as collectors. Even the palaces of kings and queens and the houses of the nobility have been ransacked, and treasures from an artistic point of view, as well as from a utilitarian, have been brought to light and the dust of many years wiped away.

Many delightful examples of the coppersmith's art were until recently condemned by the travelling tinker as being no longer repairable, with the natural consequence that, their value as antiques being unknown, they were eventually sold for an "old song." Those pioneers of collecting who had time on their hands and foresaw an accruing value of even old metal went about from town to town examining the marine stores and visiting villages and farmhouses in search of anything old and curious. To-day there are few genuine antiques without some one to value them. Nearly every collection belongs to an appreciative owner, and when curios change hands it is generally at a premium instead of at "a bargain price."

Hitherto reference has been made chiefly to metal curios of British make, and to those objects with which Englishmen have become familiar. The collector, however, is cosmopolitan in his aims, and cheerfully searches the world over for objects of interest. His curios come from the Far East, from Central Africa, and from all parts of Europe, and to some extent from the American continents. There have been many methods of producing metal-work, yet native workers in all countries have had but two processes upon which they have based their plans, and it is from the smiths who hammered copper and brass into shape, and in later days stamped it, and the founder who cast the metal in moulds, that all our curios come.