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Antique Brass & Copper Identification & Value Guide
This book will help both the buyer and seller make accurate evaluations. Full-color photographs of more than 500 items together with complete descriptions and current values make this an invaluable reference. Lighting implements, fireplace equipment, kitchen items, tools, hardware fixtures, decorative & personal objects, and household copper items including entrance & foyer, parlor & study, kitchen & dining room, and bed & bath pieces are featured. 2001 values. 8.5 x 11.
207 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1991
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January 12, 2020
I enjoy books that fetishize antique and vintage items, the remnants of material cultures of ages past. Ms. Gaston apparently has authored a large number of such resource guides for collectors.
While I harbor no particular love of copper nor brass (a copper-zinc alloy) I enjoyed looking at the items and trying to guess their values, which are only revealed in the back of the book in a probably already outdated pricing guide. I guess I'm just not a cuprophiliac nor an aurichalumphile. The photography was generally pretty great with a few exceptions which left me puzzled. I imagine the charm for some collectors is the way these metals age and tarnish, tell their stories of long use. Many of the items are common culinary tools but there are also some decorative and luxury items included. I had no idea that Victorian molds could be so sensuous. Some of them look like extraterrestrial landscapes. The book also includes some stellar printer's plates of yesteryear that made me curious to investigate those further on other sites. I wish there were more of a selection of Victorian bird cages, as I know they went totally crazy with the proliferation of designs in that period. Only a few are included, but it's clear by the price guide these are much sought-after items. I'm hoping people display them sans birds, as they really make me sad when I imagine their long-gone denizens.
Even that non-productive melancholy of the bird cages is part of why books like this are interesting to me. If you really study objects of past cultures, you can feel yourself transported into the mindsets that created them. This is why I get lost for so many long hours in antiques malls. When they are deserted they are at their best. You can really commune with the objects and do a sort of time traveling. Books like this allow that to a lesser degree. I really wish memories could be implanted into our DNA. Not just behavior-memories (instinct) but object memories. It would so help our evolution, which is so painfully slow (the news every day). Or if we could at least touch objects and read the stories in them. That would be very helpful.
While I harbor no particular love of copper nor brass (a copper-zinc alloy) I enjoyed looking at the items and trying to guess their values, which are only revealed in the back of the book in a probably already outdated pricing guide. I guess I'm just not a cuprophiliac nor an aurichalumphile. The photography was generally pretty great with a few exceptions which left me puzzled. I imagine the charm for some collectors is the way these metals age and tarnish, tell their stories of long use. Many of the items are common culinary tools but there are also some decorative and luxury items included. I had no idea that Victorian molds could be so sensuous. Some of them look like extraterrestrial landscapes. The book also includes some stellar printer's plates of yesteryear that made me curious to investigate those further on other sites. I wish there were more of a selection of Victorian bird cages, as I know they went totally crazy with the proliferation of designs in that period. Only a few are included, but it's clear by the price guide these are much sought-after items. I'm hoping people display them sans birds, as they really make me sad when I imagine their long-gone denizens.
Even that non-productive melancholy of the bird cages is part of why books like this are interesting to me. If you really study objects of past cultures, you can feel yourself transported into the mindsets that created them. This is why I get lost for so many long hours in antiques malls. When they are deserted they are at their best. You can really commune with the objects and do a sort of time traveling. Books like this allow that to a lesser degree. I really wish memories could be implanted into our DNA. Not just behavior-memories (instinct) but object memories. It would so help our evolution, which is so painfully slow (the news every day). Or if we could at least touch objects and read the stories in them. That would be very helpful.
Displaying 1 of 1 review