42 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



The direct erieet of this Act was to stop any private sale or negotiation 

 in unmarked plate. As the informer got the benefit in case any violation 

 of the law was discovered, every private owner of unmarked plate was in the 

 hands of every member of his household. 



IJut if society took the same views of old plate as we do, the law might 

 hardly touch them at all. Old plate is with us a treasure which few people 

 care to sell. It was a very different affair in the eighteenth century. 



I have already described the various transactions which show that in 

 private owners of plate were constantly, and without any 

 sentiment, turning it into cat 



At all events, the p owners of unassayed plate after 1752 was 



this, that to give it it.- valm -: be assayed before any attempt was 



e to sell or exchange it. Accordingly, the older pieces in the possession 

 of ' _ tice. But, as the assay master 



was forbidden by his corporation any plate which did not bear the 



initials of a known maker. <>r of the man who brought it there, the College 

 naturally employed a goldsmith to carry out the process for them. With 

 r p-erhaps his father's punch on it. the unmarked silver was submitted 

 to the assayer, who put upon i: . the crowned harp and the 



// g had the tax of lid t<> him. 



t about the bad no evidence in what year the 



•■ was m i iption upon it, if there was one, only gave hiin 



the _ cases of plat le for a different purpose, as 



the College plate in 1731, he bad that the date was false. M 



ove:. latically destroyed at I 



end of each laid up in Btore. Hence it is that in all I 



post-assayed pie< examined ti properly omitted. 



Th:- : what happened to our plate, and it accc- 



I reasonably for the facts. I or 



-t have Ijeen carried out gradually and quietly, for I can 



find no direct statement of the practice. It was 'lone to make the unmarked 



silver saleable, whenever the College Bhould desire to turn this part of its 



property into moi 



y . pp, when examining the College plate, raised another 



difficulty. He admitted, indeed, that - hese post-marked pieces were 



1 It is very UmenU rt that the old plate-book of the College, which is often 



red to us the acquisition and sale of plate, has disappeared, I fear 



beyond hope of recovery. If it ever turns up, ad in it many ijuestions definitely 



• red, and shall know whf 'theses are true or false. Possibly 



wen -nee part of i:. 



