The Engraver's Art.
This outline of the hunting-ground of the collector would be incomplete without some mention of the products of the graver's tool which has produced so many works of art. The much prized mezzotints, stipples, and line engravings are pictures for the most part printed from copper plates. The metal rolled in sheets and planished becomes a work of art in itself when covered with those beautiful pictures so cleverly wrought upon the metal by the light touch of the graver.
Perhaps one of the most interesting uses to which copper has been put is that of executing beautiful miniatures—tiny pictures, portraits, and emblematic designs such as were used by traders on their stationery in years gone by. The copper-plate engraver has left his mark, too, in the beautifully quaint and very valued early issues of postage-stamps, some of which were printed from copper plates. Just as copper plays an important part in the production of postage-stamps and pictures, so copper in conjunction with its alloys is the common metal of currency. Some of the most valuable metallic curios are the ancient coins which have been dug up from where they have been buried for centuries, or discovered in some hidden chamber. Such little objects of copper or bronze have an antiquarian value far beyond either their artistic beauty or their age warrants being associated with them. Collectors of metals know the value of some of the historic commemorative medallions in bronze, and heroes and warriors show their appreciation of one of the commoner metals in the value they set upon the simple Maltese cross inscribed "For Valour," for the Victoria Cross is more coveted than any naval or military award the Sovereign of these realms can bestow. Its owners regard it as a precious relic, and the reluctance of those left behind to part with it is seen in the large sum which has to be paid for one of these simple bronze crosses when it comes in the market.
III
PREHISTORIC
BRONZES
CHAPTER III
PREHISTORIC BRONZES
The dawn of progress—London relics—The beauty of ancient art—The useful bronzes, the prototypes of later brasses—The forger at work.
As it has already been intimated, our older metal curios come to us from the Bronze Age. In the relics of that period, in which the British Museum is so rich, we are able to mark the great difference that must have existed between the people who lived the "simple life" in the Stone Age, and those who understood how to make and how to use implements of bronze. Metal must have revolutionized the habits of the people, fostered development, and marked progress as the Age advanced; for with metal appliances there were greater possibilities, and from the fact that while some used bronze others were content with flint, it would appear that then, perhaps, more than at any other time, the more advanced were sharply separated from those who, possessing lesser intelligence and possibly fewer opportunities, stayed behind.