I eventually wrote to a firm of pewter manufacturers explaining the conversion I wished to have effected, and they informed me they would do the job if I would say whether I wanted a deep dish or a shallow one and what width of rim I desired. In about three weeks after I had sent them the bedpan I received the fine deep (alms) dish bearing the maker’s name and mark--Joseph Austen--well preserved, proving the article was made in Cork over 100 years ago. It looks very well indeed and I have never had its virtue questioned; in fact when I have told visitors they have been greatly astonished, while a few have been hard to convince.
Now you understand my remark that I had one “alms dish” that had never been inside a sacred edifice.
_When the Pewterer’s done his pewtering, And his work is quite au fait: When his making’s turned to faking, And the marks are left O.K.; The collector sees, and then agrees, The pewter must be old. Now doubts arise, before his eyes, He fears that he’s been sold._
These under the eye of the camera are more or less alike, especially more--then let it suffice the reader to learn that I have forty small and thirty large of various sizes displayed wherever a likely space is available without giving a too crowded appearance. They nearly all bear makers’ marks or owners’ crests or initials, or evidence that they have been put to good use at some time or other. I have been told that when these big chaps were in vogue the various conglomerations forming the meal were heaped together and formed a goodly pile, so there is no doubt of the authenticity of the story of the Scottish farmer with a prodigious appetite at a Rent Dinner who when they wanted to take away his plate said “Bide awee for I hae just found a doo (pigeon) in the reddin o’ ma plate.”
As regards the rims, while I know some enthusiastic collectors could talk for a week on this feature, which to the uneducated suggests distinction without a difference, I will not labour the point.
I saw some very bright 9 inch plates in London recently with ornamental rims, and out of curiosity enquired the price. I was told 25s. each, but the information that they were Dutch was not vouchsafed.
Probably my “pride of the paddock” plate is one on Plate XIX (facing p. 43). It has a raised bead running round the centre of the rim, is thought to be early eighteenth century, and was made by Allen Bright, who has since retired from business. Judging by its shape it should pass muster as a genuine alms dish; though it may have been constructed to hold pennies in the kirk, I think it just as likely it held puddings in the kitchen--a thought inspired by the old knife-cuts on the bottom.