Most of the things we have been talking about can also be found in Sheffield plate. This was a popular substitute for silver in the days before electro-plating. It became very popular with the early and mid-Victorian middle classes, and is now almost as much sought after by collectors as silver itself. It is made by fusing a thin sheet of silver on to a thicker piece of copper, then rolling it out so that it can be worked or stamped into the required shape. For this reason in worn pieces you will see the copper showing through the silver. Some people send their Sheffield plate to be electro-plated, but as this completely covers the article with a hard brightness totally foreign to the real quality of old Sheffield plate, it is not to be recommended unless the piece is very worn indeed. In fact a touch or two of copper is a great help in deciding that the piece is Sheffield plate: so, in the larger pieces, is a small shield of silver let into the plate for engraving a name or a crest. Sometimes one comes across pieces of plate which have been fused in precisely the same way as Sheffield plate, but using nickel silver, so that no copper colour shows through when worn. This is called German silver, after the country of its origin, but like Sheffield plate, it was eventually put out of business by electro-plating in the 1850’s and 186o’s.

Antique Collector MagazineIn looking for Sheffield plate, don’t be misled when you find the word “Sheffield“, together with a maker’s name or a number, impressed on the base of pieces. This is, in fact, Britannia metal, an alloy of tin and antimony and copper which scrap merchants today accept as pewter, and which was introduced as a cheap substitute for both silver and Sheffield plate. All the same there are some very fine shapes of teapots and coffee-pots to be found quite cheaply in this metal, so if you can find them before they all go off to the scrap merchants for melting down, you may be glad in years to come to have found them.

Enamels

One kind of collectable enamel (”Battersea” boxes) has already been dealt with, but another one sees a good deal in the shops goes under the name cloisonné. They are generally light vases, boxes, or other decorative items, in Chinese or other eastern styles. The term comes from the French cloison, meaning a small cell or enclosure, and this explains how the decoration is put on. Starting with the metal bases, usually brass, the pattern is outlined with little wires forming enclosures. These little cells are then filled with different coloured enamel—a sort of glass paste. In another type of enamelling, called champleve, the decoration is done by hollowing out tiny cells in the metal itself, then filling them with enamel, while in yet a third, called “encrusted”, the enamel is put straight on to the flat surface of the piece.

Most of the things you see in this country were made in the East, especially Canton, expressly for the export trade to the West, and consequently they do not reflect the taste of their makers so much as that of the Victorians, who loved to cover everything with as much detail as possible. All the same there are some very fine ones, with landscapes and birds, although they are fetching a much higher price now than they were only a few years ago.

Pewter

Good old pewter in fine condition is hard to come by nowadays, and anyone seriously interested in collecting it should go to the specialist dealers and pay their price— which is not low.

But here and there in the ordinary shops there is some pewter of the nineteenth century and later which you will find quite interesting and worth collecting. There are, for example, all those fine sturdy tavern pots and measures, some with the name of the actual hostelry stamped on the base. These often have excise marks stamped round the rims as well. Our picture shows a selection of these. There are also later ones with glass bottoms, white and coloured, so that yo can see what you are drinking—or watch your companions while you are doing it. There are capstan- shaped inkwells, pepper pots, in the form of dogs, spoons, pounce boxes, salts, pipe stoppers, little shoes, cows, etc.

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Sheffield Plate