Antique pewter
recommended books
Buying and selling pewter antiques,
this is the ultimate guide to buying and selling antique pewter, know how to spot genuine old pewter and not get ripped off. A must have guide for anyone serious about collecting antique pewter.
Want to understand pewter marks?
This is the essential guide to pewter marks, understand the true value of your pewter items
Collectors with a passion for British pewter should check out this book:
Antique Pewter Of The British Isles. A Brief Survey Of What Has Been Made In Pewter In England And The British Isles, From The Time Of Queen Elizabeth I To The Reign Of Queen Victoria.
Understanding the origins and value of pewter antiques
The appeal of old pewter lies in its unusual shapes and mellow tints and above all in its rarity.
At the point of origin antique pewter normally had low value and our ancestors could have had little notion, as they drank their ale from pewter tankards or ate their meals from pewter plate, of the prominence that these household goods would one day acquire or the prices that it might command. Although the metal itself has little intrinsic value - as an alloy of lead and tin with a soupcon of antimony, bismuth or copper – it has grown in prominence because of historic interest.
Antique pewter is known to date back over thousand years to ancient China and there are actual examples dating back over eleven hundred years of Japanese pewter held in museums in both Britain and the USA. There have also been claims that the Hebrews produced pewter and that it was also used in some form in ancient Rome.
Examples of pewter produced in Northern Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are more common. Fine ornate and carefully crafted examples can be found from around 1550 in the work of the Frenchman Briot and slightly later by the Swiss Enderlain. From the sixteenth century the trade developed in Scotland around Edinburgh and Glasgow and during the seventeenth century Dutch and German pewter came to the fore.
Although English pewter is known to date back to the tenth century, few examples now exist before those produced in the seventeenth century, probably because much would have been destroyed during the reformation. Originally - up until the fourteenth century pewter - would have been used exclusively by the nobility or for ecclesiastical purposes. Pewter probably reached its zenith in the context of domestic use in the seventeenth century after supplanting wooden tableware from the sixteenth century onwards.
From around 1780 onwards pewter once again became mainly the preserve of the upper classes where it held sway for a considerable length of time although it also lingered for some time in taverns and inns and in London chop houses.
In the wider context of the world of antiques pewter originating from England is generally considered to the superior form. This possibly stems from the fact that English pewter tended to be more sturdy and dignified than its foreign counterparts. Much of this probably resulted from the role of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers, a London guild which did much to ensure that pewter marks were employed and recorded. Sadly the records that the company had compiled were lost in the Great Fire of London in 1666 so it has proved exceedingly difficult to tie pieces that exist today to their original touch (manufacturers) mark. We can however recognise good examples of early English pewter from the Worshipful Company’s quality mark of a rose with a crown.
Scotland also had a guild based in Edinburgh although there are now no known plates bearing their touch marks (thistle and a crown) in existence. Occasionally examples of local marks can be found on Scottish pewter.
France, too, had guilds, but these were abolished, in the late eighteenth century by the statesman Turgot on the ground that the free right to work was a sacred privilege of humanity. After this the quality and use of pewter gradually declined as china and other pottery became more fashionable.
Pewter also played a prominent part in the early years of America, either because settlers brought this with them or because English pewter makers sought their fortunes in the new world, many settling around Boston, Plymouth County and Salem. Most of the early pieces made in America bear the name of their maker.
The value of old pewter varies considerably. In England, the highest prices tend to be paid for sixteenth century pewter, while in the USA those from the eighteenth century are the most highly regarded. Specifically the simple pieces that would have graced the earlier colonial homes are those in greatest demand.
Understanding pewter marks can help you establish the true value of your pewter
for great celtic pewter gift ideas click here
