The caster can be traced in an unbroken line as an article of table use from the end of the seventeenth century to the present day. Even with so simple an object, apparently incapable of much variation in form, it is interesting to note the successive stages of fashion and the different phases of its history.
At first it was of lesser height. The examples illustrated on pages 269 and 277 show this. The straight cylindrical form, illustrated on page 269, similar to that made by Christopher Canner, appears to have been the earliest type, and this lasted from about 1680 for a quarter of a century. There is a set of three Charles II casters of this style made by Anthony Nelme in 1684. There is also a simple form about the opening of the eighteenth century with plain round top. A fine Irish example, made by George Lyng, and marked with the Dublin hall-marks for 1699 (illustrated p. 331), shows a more ornate character not infrequent in Irish silver. The Irish silversmith was often ahead of his English contemporaries. By 1712 the Queen Anne caster was becoming taller and the body retained the band found in the straight cylindrical form. The cover offered a field for delightful and varied patterns in pierced work. There is a charm about these individual patterns which is irresistible to the collector. The cover is surmounted by a baluster knob which it retained throughout the successive changes in the body. These ornaments are delicately symmetrical, and in one instance coming under the writer’s observations the knob was a miniature of the caster it crowned. The marks on casters are placed at the top of the neck near the cover.
[Illustration: GEORGE II CASTER. EXETER, 1728.
(_In possession of Messrs. J. Ellett Lake & Son, Exeter._)]
In 1730, at the Court of Wardens at the London Assay Office, it was laid down that the marks be struck as far distant from each other as possible, so that the series of marks could not be cut out in one piece and soldered into another piece. It had been found that it was “an antient practice among evil-disposed goldsmiths” of converting new plate into old by this means.
Variations in the body took place; sometimes the band around took an octagonal form and the concave body above and the convex body below followed this geometric form in their curve. There is an example of this type with the hall-marks for London for 1716, and the maker’s mark A. D. in shield, wrought by Charles Adam. This is among the Chester Corporation plate.