Mahapfy — The Post-Assaying on Dated Plate in T. 0. D. 39 



proper chemical tests of its purity. If it satisfies this test, lie -then stamps 

 the piece with the hall-marks, viz., in Ireland, with a crowned harp, a date 

 letter, Hide mice, and, after 1807, with the reigning king's head. Jt then goes 

 back to the maker, who polishes the assayed surface to make the object fit for 

 sale. An ugly scrape on a smooth surface would not be tolerated by any 

 buyer. 



Now the salvers in question show the reverse order of treatment. The 

 ugly scraping of the assay master was evidently inflicted on the piece after it 

 had left the maker, and in the present case long after. How can we account 

 for this strange phenomenon '. I believe I have found it in the legislation of 

 the day, accompanied by the well-known fact that even after the establish- 

 ment of banks in Dublin old plate was looked on as merely bullion, and 

 frequently sold as such by the owners. 



The Act of 3 George II (1729-30), cap. x, imposed a new duty of 6V. per 

 ounce on all manufactured silver, payment of the duty being attested by a 

 special stamp or mark, to be approved of by the Goldsmiths' Corporation. It 

 is very curious that in the minutes of the corporation of that date there is no 

 mention of any discussion or decision as to the particular mark, though the 

 Act is seriously considered by them in their minutes, and certain queries 

 made about its interpretation. Moreover, a great quantity of plate was 

 assayed just before the Act came into force, in order to escape the new duty. 

 As a matter of fact, a figure of Hibernia sitting, wilh her harp beside her, on 

 an oval shield, was the mark adopted and used without change for many 

 years. But the Act imposed this new duty only upon the importers or 

 makers of this plate, to be paid by them. Section xxxii proceeds : — " And it 

 shall be enacted that during the said term of twenty-one years no goldsmith, 

 silversmith, or any other person whatsoever, working or trading in wrought 

 or manufactured gold or silver, shall sell or expose for sale, barter, or 

 exchange any manufacture of gold or silver unless it be so small as not to be 

 capable of receiving a mark (viz., silver wire, or things under four penny- 

 weight) until such time as such plate, vessel, or manufacture of gold or 

 silver shall be assayed, touched, and marked in manner and form hereafter 

 prescribed in that behalf, upon pain of forfeiting the value thereof," &c.' 



1 There are many more minute details about the appointment of an assay master, his 

 duties of keeping a book with the names of those who came to him, his obligations, and 

 the penalties to which he was to be subject; but in all the Acts there is no explicit 

 mention of the duty of a silversmith in the case — which must have been very frequent — 

 of the buying or the mending of old plate. It is certain that the Act intended no plate to 

 come out of his house in the way of business without paying the new duty ; but what 

 amount of mending compelled or entitled him to put on his own mark with the 

 Hibernia, and if so, what became of the older maker's mark J Jlr. Lebas does 



