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Pewter 
W HETHER a genuine antique, a fake 
imitation or a frankly modern pro¬ 
duction, a piece of pewter ware is almost 
certain to have good lines, and will make 
an effective bit of decoration if used in 
the proper place and not mixed indiscrim¬ 
inately with brass or silver. 
The ppportunities for collectors of real¬ 
ly old pewter are of course few and far 
between, in this country as well as abroad, 
and most people who buy a few pieces for 
•decorative purposes must be content with 
those of distinctly modern make. The use 
•of this ware in place of silver, which was 
too much of a luxury for the struggling 
■colonists, extended over a period of almost 
two hundred years, the manufacture of 
pewter articles for household use practi¬ 
cally ending in this country with the be¬ 
ginning of the nineteenth century. So 
thoroughly have the attractions of these 
old pieces been appreciated by collectors 
that there is little to be bought now. 
A round of the so-called antique shops 
reveals only a few pieces, of such doubtful 
antiquity that one is immediately reminded 
of tales about manufactured worm holes 
and made-to-order stains. They are real¬ 
ly too black and ancient looking to be gen¬ 
uine. A certain amount of pewter is still 
manufactured. Some of it is unmistak¬ 
ably new in appearance, with no pretense 
at being anything but modern, while other 
pieces are made from old moulds, and 
show clever imitations of the marks of 
famous makers which doubtless tend to 
•deceive a more or less unsuspecting pub¬ 
lic. 
In either case, though not as carefully 
made, and therefore not so perfect as the 
antique pieces, they nevertheless preserve 
the severely plain lines that formed the 
principal charm of this ware. Among the 
productions of the modern pewter manu¬ 
facturers are the ale mugs with glass bot¬ 
toms, small editions of the old tankards, 
that are decidedly commercial in appear¬ 
ance, though of attractive shape; and 
plates, tureens, hot-water dishes, salt 
cellars, pepper pots, spoons, and moulds 
in various shapes, some of them quite 
elaborate. 
Opportunities of picking up quaint 
pieces, even of modern make, are much 
better abroad than in this country, and 
the collection shown in the illustration was 
acquired mainly in Erance and Belgium. 
The specimens shown in the shops here 
are high in price, considering the uncer¬ 
tainty of their age, or rather the certainty 
of their youth. Small plates are $2.00 to 
$4.00 each, and spoons from $2.00 up. 
while tankards and larger pieces are still 
more expensive proportionately. How¬ 
ever, there is always the fact that stirs the 
enthusiastic collector to feverish action, 
the chance of obtaining a genuinely old 
piece. Such pieces not only have the 
maker’s name stamped in the bottom, 
which may or may not be proof positive, 
but a more certain guarantee of their 
genuineness is that with scarcely an ex¬ 
ception the marks of the hammer are vis¬ 
ible in one place or another. 
Whether to keep pewter highly polished 
or not is always a question for discussion, 
and although in one way the shining pieces 
Few are aware that pewter of frankly modern 
manufacture is nearly as good as that 
hunted for its antique value, and much 
more reasonable 
may seem rather more attractive, in an¬ 
other their dullness always holds out the 
possibility of being the dullness of age, 
and some persons consider the polishing 
of pewter an act hardly short of vandal¬ 
ism. The chances are that even the little 
pewter mug that may not have had time 
to celebrate its first birthday would be 
allowed to go unpolished by the majority 
of owners. 
Inlay as a Home Craft 
I NLAY, done with woods of different 
colors and varying grain, is usually 
thought of as a difficult art. In Germany, 
however, it is a home craft followed by 
women who, without special training, 
make beautiful gifts for their friends or 
decorate useful articles for themselves. 
The triangular tray, measuring ten and a 
quarter inches across, shown in our illus¬ 
tration, was made by a young German 
girl. A similar one could easily be made 
by an amateur with a slight knowledge of 
the use of tools, 
A small jig-saw, screws, sandpaper and 
shellac, and a workbench of some sort 
furnished with handscrews or vise are 
needed for the work. The necessary ma¬ 
terial, pieces of veneer in mahogany, 
ebony, cherry and other woods, may be 
purchased of a dealer in veneers or from 
a cabinet maker. Less expensive woods 
are needed for backing. 
It is best for the beginner to use only 
two contrasting veneers in one piece of 
inlay. Two articles can be made at the 
same time, thus utilizing all the veneer. 
In making trays similar to our illustrated 
one, mahogany and ebony are employed 
and a piece of each somewhat larger than 
the finished tray is procured in the veneer. 
The two pieces are glued together, but a 
piece of newspaper is first put between 
them, as otherwise they could not be sep¬ 
arated later. They are then put into a 
press between two boards or fastened 
firmly and evenly between handscrews at 
a workbench, and left for several hours 
until perfectly dry. The next step is to 
cut out the pattern, previously traced on 
the wood from a design on paper. The 
simpler this design is the better, and a 
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