I was in my office and had just put down a pewter snuffers-tray when a traveller for a Scottish firm was announced. As soon as the interview commenced he opened his bag to get out his samples, when my eye chanced to catch a glimpse of something almost hidden by a sleeping garment and my instinct spotted pewter. He told his tale and waited for an indication of the impression he had created, which was conveyed to him in this form.
“Excuse me, but was that a piece of old pewter I caught sight of in your bag?”
“Yes, sir; are you interested in old pewter? I slept the night in Warrington and I saw this in a shop as I was going to the station; I think it is an old rose-bowl, and I shall be pleased to give it to you if you will have it.”
Of course, I couldn’t think of such a thing, but I should be glad to exchange with him for a snuffers-tray I had on my desk. He assured me that he would be delighted, and as I always endeavour to give pleasure to others I fetched the tray. That gentleman secured a contract and a tray and left me with thanks and a seventeenth-century Scotch chalice. You never know your luck when collecting.
But for my awkward conscience I should include the basin shown on Plate VI, this being sold as “a vestry piece.” It may have been used by the parson, or for washing the Communion vessels, anyway I preferred to believe the dealer, and gave it a conspicuous position, which the ladies objected to, and I found it relegated to the rear. On seeking an explanation, and calling it “a vestry piece,” I retired hurt, so to speak, by the remark “Vestry! Why my aunt had a thing like that, in which she made us children wash our hands,” and then, still so gently o’er me stealing, memory would bring back the feeling of us youngsters having been caused to do the same very necessary performance in a similar utensil, with cold water from the pump at the old house at home fifty to sixty years ago.
I had not been many years a collector before I found spurious Communion cups and Communion sets were on the market and I obtained some very enlightening information, much of which I cannot publish. It was the practice to blacken the new pieces with acid to give them an appearance of age, and I heard of an instance relating to hundredweights of faked pewter, but I am coming straight to the point and the photographs on Plates XXV and XXVI will corroborate my statement. I was further informed that they were making deep dishes out of old bedpans, preserving the maker’s mark on the bottom. I had had a bedpan hidden away in the stable loft for some time, and I decided to prove how far this information was correct. The pan had come from Ireland with a box full of “gatherings,” and I had almost decided to sell it to be melted.