As an apprentice to a silversmith, what will Johnny do? Probably he will arise very early in the morning and do household chores like any son of the family. One of his duties in the shop will doubtless be to light the fire in the forge. If necessary he will replenish the supply of charcoal, perhaps by fetching a sack from a bakery. The baker produces charcoal as an incidental by-product in the course of heating his ovens.
Above are a forge and various tools, such as a mold, bellows, and soldering lamp, which would have been found in an eighteenth-century silversmith’s shop. DIDEROT.
In addition, the young apprentice serves as errand boy, delivering finished goods, collecting bills, and carrying supplies. He also brings cakes and ale for the daily interlude that corresponded to the coffee break of today.
TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES OF THE COLONIAL SILVERSMITH
From the founding of Jamestown to the time of the Revolution some 300 silversmiths practiced in the three cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia alone. Another 200 worked in the smaller centers of New England and the middle colonies and in such southern places as Charleston, Annapolis, and Williamsburg. Unfortunately, if any of these 500 colonial silversmiths left a written account of his shop practices and methods of work, it has not been found.
Accordingly, our knowledge of the ways in which colonial smiths worked is derived from other sources. Most of it comes from a few technical handbooks and illustrated encyclopedias published in Europe at about the same time. Inasmuch as many colonial silversmiths gained their knowledge of the craft and of its standards of good practice as apprentices in the old country, it is probable that silversmithing practices in America were similar.
Not identical, though. The environment of the new country altered in some manner or to some degree almost every single attitude, habit, and craft practice. For example, in eighteenth-century England the silversmith whose shop was located within the purview of an assay office could sell the articles he made (with certain exceptions) only after the pieces had been assayed and stamped with the appropriate hallmarks, including one denoting the fineness of the metal. Since the colonies had neither assay offices nor regulations governing the work of silversmiths, each smith was responsible for the quality of his own work.
Because most re-used plate came originally from England and because coins were generally minted at or near sterling fineness (925/1000ths fine, or 92.5% pure silver, the rest of the alloy being copper), most American silversmiths presumably turned out work that was not too far from sterling purity. They could not afford to slip much below that level, after all, since they competed for favor and sales with the much esteemed plate imported from England. In many advertisements in the colonial press, smiths explicitly warranted their work to be of sterling quality. However, among the pieces of early American silver that have actually been assayed in recent years, only a portion have met the test; quite a number have not.
While American smiths no doubt resented the general preference of their customers for articles of English manufacture, they could not overlook the fact that English fashions in design dominated colonial life. Accordingly, silver of colonial make imitated the London styles in plate, being usually some years behind them.