Tobacco-boxes and Pipe-stoppers.
Smokers' sundries include many objects in brass, especially boxes for storing tobacco. Most of the larger receptacles for the storage of tobacco were in olden time of lead or pewter, or, in more recent times, of japanned tin, followed in the present day by pottery and wood. The small boxes in the days before rubber pouches were known were nearly always of brass or other metal, such boxes being often elaborately ornamented. Dutch metal-workers produced some very decorative boxes in the seventeenth century. In some instances the sides are made of copper and the covers or lids of brass, the two metals in contrast presenting a very pleasing appearance. Several of these boxes are to be seen in the Guildhall Museum; on one there is the representation of a bear-pit, on another scriptural subjects, a third being more appropriately covered with tavern scenes. Needless to say, Dutch artists were then—as they have been in after years—famous for their scenic views. The engravers appear to have divided their favours between religious pictures and rural scenes. Battles, too, came in for a share of the engraver's skill, and such pictures are noticeable on many of the larger boxes, some of which possibly were not used as tobacco-boxes. The picture scenes were continued until the close of the eighteenth century, and in some instances a few years in the next. Then there came a time of undecorated metal-work, and the engraving, if any, was stiff and formal. Ornamental borders came into vogue, and the more elaborate boxes were engraved with the crests or monograms of their owners. Some show portraits, such as an eighteenth-century box on which is a portrait of Frederick the Great.
The metal-work so freely imported into this country in the reign of William and Mary, and on into the times of George III, of course included many tobacco-boxes, but there are other pieces of those periods, the uses of which are uncertain; some of the long, narrow boxes were probably made for spectacle-cases, and others as cases or boxes for the money-changers' and traders' scales (see [Chapter XI]).
Ash-trays of copper and brass, among the fanciful smokers' requisites of the present day, are by no means novel, for among the antiques in metal are found curious copper bowls with inverted feet and wooden handles which were used by smokers in the days when "churchwarden" pipes were mostly smoked; they were known as smokers' ashes pans.
Tobacco-stoppers of metal are of early date, and seem to have been regarded by metal-workers as peculiarly suitable objects on which to display skill in modelling and even engraving. An authentic record of their use in Restoration days is met with in a will referring to a bequest of Boscobel relics: "The owner of an old oak box, dated 1660, mentioned it as the 'one in which was a brass tobacco-stopper.'" Of these curious and interesting stoppers there are many varieties. Under Dutch influence some striking characters were portrayed as the ornamental heads of these pieces. In the days of William and Mary they were chiefly cast, and afterwards tooled and even engraved. James II was chosen as the model of many; and stoppers with his bust as the handle were, it is said, treasured by Jacobean admirers. The human hand in which is seen a "churchwarden" pipe is a favourite type; pugilists, too, figured, and others typified familiar objects of local fame, even animals, birds, and domestic utensils serving the purpose of the designer. In recent days "Punch" has appeared, and among the modern replicas of "early types" (sic) to be seen in the shops are sets of Dickens's characters as tobacco-stoppers.