This basically concerns several metals namely pewter, copper, brass and bronze, but the general approach to authenticating pieces made in any metal as well as any of the above metals is similar. British silver and other precious metals are subject to a rigid hallmarking system and is dealt with seperately elsewhere. Authentification of a piece can be divided into five areas, as follows:
Method Of Manufacture
Over the centuries the techniques adopted for making all forms of metalware have varied, some methods declining whilst others rose in importance. A sound knowledge of how objects were made at various times in history is a great asset when seeking to date metalware. For example; the type of seam used in copper and brass work are good guides to dating.
Maker And Other Marks
This is perhaps the easiest check where reference works illustrating makers´ marks exist. Only a small proportion of objects do have maker marks, however. But there are other marks which can be useful: house marks, ownership marks and initials, full coats of arms or crests engraved on pieces can all help with dating. For example, coats of arms have been rendered in different styles according to their period, establish the style and you can begin to date when the piece was made.
Style
This is a dangerous area if knowledge is used inflexibly. Similar objects were made over several decades and it is often not possible to establish a neat, chronological order. Patterns do emerge, however, and identifying the style of a piece suggests a broad period during which it might have been made.
Observation
You can learn a lot by feeling the item as well as by looking at it. Handle it, run your fingers over its edges, turnings and hinges. Try to locate and quantify the wear and establish if this can be considered normal for the piece comisurate with age. It is extremely unlikely that you will come across a piece dating from the 1600's in pristine condition, no wear usually means little age.
Alloys
For economic and technical reasons the alloys used by coppersmiths, brassfounders, braziers, blacksmiths and pewterers, have varied over time and a knowledge of the alloys can provide definitive answers. To carry out this check requires access to analytical equipment.
Experience
There is not a book written that can teach experience or compensate for the lack of experience. No amount of advice, list of facts, or practical guidance can give you the experience that is needed to make sound judgments. The more metalware you handle the more you will see and understand, for it is never enough to apply a set of rules and come out with a dogmatic judgment. Assessing an item is a matter of balancing the probabilities. If all the indicators point one way then you can be reasonably sure of your attribution, but when the evidence conflicts, you need to be more tentative.
There are two sources of potential difficulty: genuine fakes, which were carefully made to deceive; and reproductions; which at their first sale are offered for what they are but at subsequent sales may well be sold, sometimes artificially aged , and claim to be the item of which they were originally a copy. This gives rise to the largest group of metalware fakes on the market.
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