PERANAKAN CINA NICKEL-SILVER KEYHOLDER & CHAIN (ca. 1900)

 

The traditional outfits of the Peranakan Cina, or the Straits-Born Chinese, of Southeast Asia was often a “sarong” wrap-around skirt, and a “baju”, a shirt or blouse worn over the torso. Neither the sarong, and more often-than-not, not even the baju, ever came with pockets.

These factors in their clothing effected how the Peranakan carried important items with them while dressed. Men or babas who had pockets in their shirts could easily store stuff in them, or in the pockets of their trousers, if they decided to adapt to European styles of dressing – which many did in the late-1800s.

However, Peranakan men, and women, who chose to stick with their traditional attire (which some do, even today) often held onto their important possessions like purses, keys, pocketwatches, etc, by attaching these items to their belts.

Peranakan belts, usually fashioned from sterling silver or similar, or even solid gold, if you could afford it, were worn by both men, and women. Women’s belts were usually larger and more elaborate, and mens’ belts were thinner and far-less ornamented. Whether worn by men or women, these belts were often accessorized with attachments for holding personal possessions. These hooks, clasps, or holders, fastened in a similar way to European chatelaines, were made of the same materials as the belts themselves – sterling silver, or on rare occasions – solid gold – or as in this instance – nickel-silver, and sometimes even gilt brass, for those whose pockets weren’t as deep as some.

Peranakan Keyholders

Made of sterling silver, nickel-silver, or copper/brass, and sometimes gilt for extra decoration, keyholders or keyhooks were one of the more common Peranakan belt-accessories. They typically had a decorated front, with a ring for attaching a chain or keys, a hook at the back, and a thin strip of spring-shaped metal to hold everything in place.

Because Peranakan belts were typically quite flat and thin, it’s easy to slide the hook over the belt, and the weight of the keyholder and chain is enough to stop it from moving around. Any items such as a purse, keys, a pocketwatch, or any other similar accessory, is simply looped through the chain, or clipped to the end of it, and then left to hang freely.

Along with keys, items like chatelaines were also added to belts via hooks and holders similar to these. Such chatelains included items like toothpicks, pocketknives, ear-curettes and other such items, used for grooming or other types of personal maintenance.

Here, we see the keyholder in position. A sarong is wrapped and folded around the waist, and then rolled or tucked, usually 3-4 times, to tighten the folds and hold it in place. A silver Peranakan belt (in this case, comprised of chain-lengths, and a silver coin, to act as a buckle) is wrapped around the waist and secured in place, to hold the sarong in position. The keyholder is then hooked onto the belt and left to hang freely, with its chain attached, or looped through, whatever items are added to it – in this case, a set of keys.

A Pair of Antique “Nyonyaware” Porcelain Bowls (ca. 1900)

 

There are many aspects of Straits-Chinese or “Peranakan” culture which have justly survived to modern times. The clothing, the footwear, the food, the ‘kueh’, the beautiful historic architecture, the silverware, jewelry, and furniture…but one area which is, perhaps, less-represented, is the type of ceramics used by the Peranakan – a style which became known as “nyonyaware”.

Nyonyaware ceramics were heavily used by the Peranakan or “baba-nyonya” – and these brightly painted, intricately decorated pieces of porcelain were to be found in almost every Peranakan home up and down the Malay Peninsula, in Singapore, and Indonesia. Today, they are rare, beautiful, and highly-collected antiques.

What is ‘Nyonyaware’?

‘Nyonyaware’ is the name given to the brightly-painted, pastel-coloured pieces of porcelain or ceramic-wares which were used by the Baba-Nyonya or Peranakan/Straits-Born Chinese in the 1800s and early 1900s. They were a major part of the culture, and most Peranakan households had at least some of these pieces in their home for use, or decoration.

They’re identified by their colour palette of soft greens, pinks, blues, yellows and occasionally darker colours like vermilion-red or a darker, royal blue, and decorative motifs taken from Chinese symbolism and mythology. Peranakan nyonyaware often had floral motifs on them, in particular – peony-flowers, and mythical Chinese animals, such as foo-dogs, and especially – phoenixes. Peonies and phoenixes were representative of Longevity (the immortal phoenix, king of birds) and Wealth (the bright and vibrant peony-flower), which made them popular decorative elements.

Despite their popular name, ‘nyonyaware’ porcelain was not manufactured in the Straits Settlements or the Dutch East Indies where the Peranakan lived. Instead, it was manufactured in China – a type of hard-paste, glazed porcelain which held little interest to the mainland Chinese. At the time, it was cheap exportware, produced for the foreign market, but the Peranakan-Chinese took a shine to this bright, overly-decorated style of ceramics, which matched their own sense of design and decoration, and started importing vast amounts of them to Southeast Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Pieces of Peranakan Nyonyaware

Peranakan nyonyaware ran the whole gamut of porcelain goods, from bowls to plates, condiment-dishes to serving platters, cups, candlesticks, teapots, tea-trays, spoons, decorative bowls and jars, pots and lidded vessels. From kamcheng to Kat Mau, from sauce-dishes to tea-services, and even stacked ceramic serving-containers (“tingkat mengkuk”, in Malay). Everything from the smallest spoon or saucer, to an entire porcelain dinner-service, with matching plates, bowls, side-dishes and serving-plates, could all be found in the distinctively bright and heavily-decorated Peranakan style.

Given this apparent abundance, one might assume that Peranakan-wares are easy to find, and cheap to collect. However, this is, for the most part, sadly not the case.

Much was destroyed or thrown out or simply lost during the Second World War, or else disposed-of, or sold-off by baba-nyonya families who no-longer had the space (or inclination) to store, or use, their ancestors’ extensive porcelain collections. Other pieces were simply just broken, chipped, damaged and disposed of.

These days, they’re valuable antiques, for display, or occasional-use, only, but 150 years ago, they were seen as nothing more than everyday, daily-use pieces of porcelain, of no more consequence or importance than the cereal bowl you might’ve used to eat breakfast from this morning. They were cheap to import, and cheap to buy, and as such, were not always treated with the greatest care. Only the fanciest, largest, or most delicate wares were housed and handled with any level of respect.

Because of this, nyonyaware is now relatively rare, and difficult to find. Pieces often cost hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, even for something relatively small. People who already own nyonyaware either inherited it from their ancestors (I have other Peranakan friends who have substantial collections of nyonyaware which were attained in this way – if they’re reading this – they know who they are!), or else, have deep, deep, DEEP pockets to purchase them on the Asian antiques market. What were once seen as frivolous, colourful, throwaway objects are now highly prized collectibles.

A Pair of Nyonyaware Bowls

Tracking down pieces of nyonyaware in good condition is not easy, especially for reasonable prices. As mentioned, a lot of them were damaged, lost, stolen, broken, or simply worn out through regular use – remember that they were not considered especially valuable pieces, and were cheap, when new – they were exportware, after all, from China.

That said, you can occasionally find nice pieces for sale at affordable prices, and over the years, I’ve managed to accumulate a small collection.

The most recent pieces I found are the subject of this post.

I found these two dishes online, originally one, and then the other – with both pieces identified by their sellers as Peranakan – and which certainly look like it. They match the accepted colour-palette of nyonyaware, and the usual types of decorations – yellow, pink, green, with peonies and phoenixes (yes, those creatures are phoenixes, not dragons!). They’re also of advanced age, as you can see from the wear and nibbling on the edges and sides.

The angled, octagonal shape, with the base and curved sides really give the bowls extra style and character – another thing which the Peranakan of old, enjoyed. Perankan-style trays platters from the same era, as well as bowls, and plates, often had decorative, curved edges, or elaborate scalloping, to add extra flair to a piece. Same goes for items such as stacking containers, which were also of a similar octagonal or hexagonal design.

While most Peranakan dishes were decorated inside, as well as out, this was not always the case, and examples with simple, single-colour glazes – such as the green shown here – were also common. In fact, green (and also white) were popular interior glaze colours.

The bowls are medium-sized, rectangular (or more specifically, octagonal), about 6.5 x 5.25 inches, and about 3 inches high. Overall, they’re in amazing condition, given their age. There is a bit of paint-loss and minor nibbling chips, which are the result of either manufacture (one bowl has a manufacture-induced crack on the base from the firing process), or just simply from old age and regular use.

Given that they’re about 130 years old, give-or-take, and being porcelain – naturally very fragile – they’ve survived remarkably intact, without anything more than light surface-wear.

Dishes like these were handpainted, a delicate and fiddly process, which resulted in the somewhat folk-arty appearance of the decorations, which was another distinctive feature of Peranakan porcelain. As mentioned, they were never designed to be expensive, and were used as everyday crockery when new, and the level of detail reflects that.

Yellow as a background colour is also a bit more unusual for Peranakan pieces. While it was certainly used, and there are plenty of examples of yellow-ground nyonyaware dishes, this is the first time I’ve owned pieces which features it so prominently. Pink, green, and pale blue tend to be a bit more common and popular.

The fact that they’re a pair, and so wonderfully reunited, is pretty amazing for any number of reasons, but they were clearly made to the same shape, style and decorations, and were obviously meant to go together as a set, which I’m glad to have.

Of course, as hand-drawn, handpainted items, they’ll never match fully-identically, unlike something which was, for example, transfer-printed, but the intent for them to match is certainly there – and adds to their folksy charm.

Modern Nyonyaware

Authentic nyonyaware porcelain dates from the 1800s through to the first half of the 20th century, at which point civil, political and military unrest in China, and Asia in-general, made it impossible to keep producing these pieces to sell them to the Peranakan market in Southeast Asia. Changing social, cultural and economic statuses eventually caused the market to dry up, and for decades, no new nyonyware pieces were being produced.

In the 21st century, with attempted revivals of Peranakan culture, crafts, and customs, nyonyaware is also on the rise again. It’s now possible to purchase reproductions of antique nyonyaware pieces, although these ones can be as (or even more) expensive as their antique counterparts, and can still be tricky to find, but are nonetheless beautiful and fascinating pieces.




SARONG KEBAYA & BAJU CINA – Traditional Peranakan Attire

 

Since their settlement of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, and the Indonesian Islands in the 1400s, the Straits-Born Chinese, Peranakan, or “Baba-Nyonya” developed a culture and customs which were as unique and as different from those followed by their Mainland-Chinese ancestors as it was possible to be.

Over the passage of centuries, the Peranakan-Chinese developed a way of life, and a type of culture and series of customs which were similar to, but also markedly different from the practices that their ancestors would’ve been familiar with in China back in the 15th century.

These differences were numerous, and ranged from subtle, to significant.

For example, the Peranakan did not prepare the same dishes, speak the same languages, or wear the same clothes as their ancestors who had left China centuries before. They used ingredients which the Chinese were unfamiliar with, to prepare delicacies which the Chinese had no knowledge of, and wore articles of clothing which would’ve been completely alien to the Mainland Chinese. All these changes, alterations and variations, caused by having to adapt to their new homeland, resulted in the Peranakan developing their own unique culture in Southeast Asia. While there were several similarities between the Straits-Chinese, and the Mainland Chinese, the Peranakan also had practices and customs which made them noticeably different from the residents of mainland China.

On top of that, the Peranakan did not speak Mandarin-Chinese. Instead, many would’ve grown up speaking Chinese dialects – either Hokkien, or Cantonese, or a variant of the Malayan language known as “Baba Malay“, a creole-style language using elements of Malay, Hokkien, Cantonese, and also later, English, which had no relation to the languages spoken in China. In the 1800s, the Peranakan also started learning how to speak English properly. This was largely thanks to schools established in the second half of the 19th century, which allowed an increasing number of Peranakans to both speak, read, and write English with greater proficiency.

One of the main ways in which the Peranakan were different from the mainland Chinese was in what they wore.

Before the widespread influence of European fashions in the 1900s, Peranakan women (nyonyas) almost exclusively wore tubular wrap-around skirts called sarong. For the longest time, most Peranakan men (babas) also wore sarong. In the hot, humid, muggy climate of the South Pacific, it was the most practical thing to wear. Easy to put on, easy to take off, easy to wash, and easy to dry. By the 19th century, however, most babas had made the switch to more European styles of dressing (adapted for tropical climates), while nyonyas kept their traditional outfits.

A baba-nyonya wedding photograph, ca. 1910. The baba is dressed in a suit, while his bride wears traditional Peranakan wedding-attire, inspired by the wedding-traditions of their mainland Chinese ancestors from centuries ago.

Sarongs don’t have any fasteners – they’re simply wrapped around your body, then tucked and rolled like a towel. To hold it in place, an optional belt was added beneath the rolled upper hem, around the waist, although this was a practice mostly adopted by the women or ‘nyonyas’ rather than by the men. By the late 1800s, these belts were elaborately fashioned from sterling silver, or 22kt gold (if you could afford it), or silver-plate (if you could not!).

On their feet, nyonyas traditionally wore “kasut manek” – Beaded Slippers. These were outdoor slippers, worn for everyday use. Intricately handmade, one pair of such slippers took weeks, or even months to produce. Men also wore kasut manek, but almost always as house-slippers, and never outside.

Up-top, Peranakan men wore traditional Chinese shirts or jackets known as “shan” or “changshan” (also known as “baju cina” or “Chinese Clothes”).

Originally, women wore a similar garment known as a panjang or “baju panjang” (literally “long blouse” or “long tunic”) – a long-cut, loose-fitting, long-sleeved tunic.

By the early 1900s, the baju panjang was seen as a very Victorian-era holdover – overly formal, and old-fashioned. This was when the much shorter, lighter blouse or “Kebaya” started taking over. By the end of the Edwardian era, it had pretty much replaced the older Baju-Panjang (although some older “bibiks” kept wearing them) in popularity.

A Peranakan family from the early 1900s. Notice the mix of traditional Peranakan, and more modern European styles of clothing

Just like the sarong, the kebaya (and the panjang) did not have any fasteners. No buttons or zippers or clips. To hold them shut, a nyonya used a “kerongsang” (also spelled ‘kerosang’) – three brooches on a chain, fastened at the bust, the torso, and the waist. Again, like the belt which held up the sarong, the kerongsang was almost always made of either high-grade silver or high-karat gold, sometimes studded with diamonds.

Whether they were sarong (for the nyonyas) or shirts or tunics (for the babas), many Peranakan-style clothes were batik-printed. This hot-wax printing and dyeing process was invented centuries ago in Indonesia (specifically Java) and the style became very popular among the Indonesian Peranakans, and spread to those residing further afield in Sumatra, Singapore, and further up the Malay Peninsula.

Today, nyonyas still wear traditional sarong-kebaya outfits during special occasions, and men will wear sarong (usually at home, but not in public) or batik-print shirts to connect with their past and heritage.

A Personal Touch – An Antique Silver Spoon (ca. 1698)

 

The things you find at the flea-market, eh? Secondhand jeans, old books, records, kids’ toys, jewelry, furniture, household kitsch, 17th century silverware!…

Wait what?

Mmmhmm!!

Pay attention, kids, and you really can find just about anything!

I picked up this, at-first, extremely unassuming spoon at the flea-market for slightly-more than mere pocket-change. The dealer knew little-enough about it, and a lot of that was sheer guesswork on his part. He believed it could be extremely old, made of silver, likely English…and…that…was really the fullest extent of his knowledge. And because of that, he let me have it cheap!

Looking for more information, I sought the opinion of other antiques dealers at the market, and they were all of the opinion that the shape, style, condition of the silver, and other indicators (I’ll get to those in a minute, I promise!) all pointed to this being a very, very, very old – likely English – solid silver spoon, dating to the last decade of the 17th century – something which I more-or-less confirmed from subsequent research when I got home. That being the case, I dated this spoon to around 1698. Of course, I don’t know this for absolute-certainty (nobody can, it’s impossible!) but the clues to its age are there, if you know where, and how to look.

That officially (or unofficially) makes this humble, battered, worn-out old spoon – of unknown history and provenance – to be the oldest piece of silver in my collection, and the oldest antique I’ve ever personally held! And in this posting, we’ll explore how that conclusion was reached.

Building a Backstory for the Spoon

Researching this spoon was unlike anything I’d ever done before when it comes to a piece of antique silverware, and that’s all due to the condition of the spoon itself.

By laws passed centuries ago – all the way back in 1300 – all English silver MUST be sterling-standard (that’s 925 parts per 1,000, or 92.5% purity of silver by weight). And, by law, all English (and later, British) silver MUST be hallmarked before it may be sold to the public.

To hallmark silver, you – as the silversmith or goldsmith – had to take your piece of silver (like…I dunno…a spoon!) to the Goldsmith’s Hall in London, where it would be assayed (tested), marked (certified) and then returned to the silversmith.

Because of this, every single piece of English silver or gold has a set of hallmarks on it. Typically four: A fineness mark (to prove that it’s sterling silver), a date-mark (to prove when it was made), an assay mark (to prove which assay-hall tested the silver) and finally – a maker’s mark (to prove who made it). These marks changed over time, but it’s almost always these four marks.

Here you can see the hallmarks on another piece of silver from my collection. From left to right:

The maker’s mark, fineness mark, assay mark, and date-letter.

Because of this, almost every piece of English silver may be cross-referenced with the records of hallmarks, to determine who made it, when it was made, where, and what of.

Unfortunately, in 1681, the Goldsmiths’ Hall in London burned to the ground…which took thousands of hallmark-records along with it…whoops!

Fortunately, such a calamity has never happened since, but that does mean that you can’t accurately date a piece of English silver before the 1680s.

That aside, you’d think that finding out how old this spoon was, would be easy! Right?

Well, ordinarily – yes. A spoon like this would absolutely have to have been marked and assayed by the office before it was legal to sell.

And it was.

But, 320+ years of holding, touching, rubbing, polishing, washing and cleaning have completely obliterated the hallmarks which would originally have been stamped firmly into the back of the handle, using four steel punches and a hammer! Which means that those marks would’ve been punched DEEP into the silver. But the march of Old Father Time has completely erased all the marks, wearing down the silver so much that only the merest ghosts of what were once hallmarks, are visible today.

Well – that’s unfortunate. But the fact that you can tell that the marks were once there – even if they can’t be read – is good news – because it means that this truly is a piece of silverware, and not just a tin can someone cut into the shape of a spoon. Also – rubbed-out hallmarks are not uncommon. It happens when the marks are either poorly struck to begin with, or were simply rubbed out from overzealous cleaning over a long period of time.

The Power of Deduction

It was Sherlock Holmes who said that it was “a capital mistake to theorise in advance of the facts. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, rather than theories to suit facts!

And the man was right. So, with no hallmarks to speak of (or at least, none which were useful to us), how to determine the age of the spoon?

Well, we had to go with what we could see, and deduce from that, the age.

The first major clue to the spoon’s age was it’s mere condition. The business-end was very, very thin – the result of centuries of scraping, cleaning, polishing and washing. The left edge of the spoon (which would contact the plate or bowl, if you were using it in your right hand) was very worn, and had significantly less silver on it than the right side of the spoon. This imbalance in the shape of the bowl tells us that it has seen a very hard, long and heavily-used life – something that only happens from centuries of wear and tear.

The next thing to look at was the construction of the spoon.

The underside of the bowl has a long tang which stretches from the end of the handle, under the bowl and almost to the end of it. Early spoons could suffer from structural issues, due to poor soldering, etc. To reinforce the joint between the bowl, and the handle, more silver was added in this area, resulting in that tang, better known in collecting circles as a “rat’s tail”.

The ‘rat’s tail’ on the back side of the spoon

The presence of the “rat-tail” proved that this spoon was very old – rattail spoons were a very old style, and would’ve largely disappeared by the late Georgian, and certainly by the Victorian era. Some spoons did still have them at that time, but by then, the rat’s tail was for decorative, rather than structural purposes. This tail, because of its size and thickness, was clearly meant to be a practical feature, rather than decorative, making the spoon an older, early 1700s or late 1600s piece.

Reading the Clues

The next indicator of the spoon’s age was the presence (on the back of the ‘terminal’, or end of the handle) of initials which had been engraved into the metal – “A.H.” – clearly those of the original owner’s. On their own, their significance doesn’t mean much – we’ll never know who “A.H.” was. But the fact that they were included on the spoon is another indicator of how old they are.

These days, if someone gave you a silver spoon, you would hardly think of engraving your initials on it, would you? I mean, why would you bother? Spoons are so common nowadays.

But that was not the case 300, 400 and 500 (and more) years ago.

In medieval times, it was common for people to eat food with a knife, and their hands. Spoons were rare, and difficult to make (remember the rat’s tail reinforcement to stop the spoon from snapping in half?). Cheap spoons were made of wood. You could also get a spoon made of copper (poisonous), pewter (poisonous), or silver (expensive!). Since spoons were so expensive and hard to make, you were only ever likely to own one – and because of this, it became the custom for a family to gift a newborn child their own personal spoon upon the occasion of their birth, or baptism, since it signified the most important operation required for life – eating!

This is the origin of the expression of being “born with a silver spoon in your mouth”.

As silver spoons were the most expensive, they were considered enormous status-symbols. A person who was gifted a silver spoon carried it for their entire lives, and to prevent theft and aid in identification, the spoons were often engraved with their initials, and sometimes, another identifier (like their date of birth, or something).

This practice of carrying your personal silver spoon everywhere you went (you never expected somebody else to just…give you a spoon!) lasted for centuries, and didn’t die out until the 1700s, when forks started becoming more commonplace after their on-again-off-again use in the 1600s.

The fact that this spoon has been engraved with someone’s initials would suggest that it came from a time when personal-use spoons were still a big part of dining culture, which would further point to the fact that it came from an earlier time.

The End of it All

Yet another indicator of the spoon’s age comes from yet another stylistic choice used in its construction:

The terminal.

The ‘terminal’ is the name given for that fancy thing at the end of the handle. It’s the decorative part that makes the spoon stand out. Some common terminals are King’s Pattern, Hannoverian, Fiddleback, etc.

This terminal is known, rather cutely, as a “dog’s nose”. I mean, you can kind of see the resemblance.


Dog-nose terminals did not last very long. From the last decade of the 17th century through to the first decade of the 18th century. A period of, at most, maybe 25 years, which really narrows down just how old this spoon might be.

Hmmm…Yes? No? Maybe?

Rule Britannia

The last final, possible, nugget of information that tells us how old the spoon is, comes from the ghosts of hallmarks left behind on the back of the handle.

As I said earlier – All English silver HAS to be hallmarked with FOUR hallmarks:

The date-letter, the assay mark, fineness mark, and maker’s mark.

Of these four marks, only two of them are half-visible. The only two which would help in dating would be the date-letter, and the fineness mark. The date-letter is nowhere to be seen (or at least, not in its entirety), but one other mark is (just) visible – and it may well be the fineness mark.

The traditional fineness mark on British silverware is the “Lion Passant” – or “Passing Lion” – specifically, a lion passing to the left. If you see this mark, it means that the metal is 925 sterling silver.

However, this was not always the case.

In the late 1600s and very early 1700s, for a very short period of time, law was changed, and silversmiths had to make their wares out of what was known as “Britannia Silver”. Britannia Silver is 95.8% purity – higher than Sterling. This might sound great, except that the more pure silver is, the weaker it gets – so weak that it can’t be used to make anything, since the metal would never hold its shape. It’s because of this that the silversmiths of London protested until the law was abolished, and silversmiths could go back to making sterling silver wares again, with Britannia as an “optional extra”, if they wished.

This law lasted from 1697 – 1720, a period of just 23 years.

Britannia silver, unlike Sterling, was indicated, not by a Lion Passant, but rather, with a Lion’s Head, or alternatively, with the figure of a seated lady – Lady Britannia!

The hallmark which is still (partially) visible is large – nearly 1cm from end to end – which would suggest it was the most important one – the fineness mark.

One way to be absolutely sure about the spoon’s date would be to have it independently assayed again. If it is 95% silver, then that would almost certainly mean that it’s from the late 1600s, or at worst, the first 20 years of the 18th century, which would still make it at least 300 years old!

Concluding Remarks

So, there you have it! An antique, 325-year-old (+/- a few years) Britannia-standard solid silver spoon!

There are loads of websites and books about identifying and studying antique British silver, but the dates and information I used in my research came from the very appropriately-named…

https://www.antiquesilverspoons.co.uk/

Update – 25th September, 2023

As I mentioned in my posting, further up, the only way to definitively prove the spoon’s age was to get it assayed. And the only way to assay the silver to find out its EXACT composition is to expose it to x-rays.

To this end, last week, I took the spoon to a gold-and-silver buyer in town who performs XRF-testing – that’s X-Ray Flourescent testing. Using an x-ray florescent machine, the tester very graciously agreed to test my spoon for me.

“95%”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. 9-5. 95%”.


A spoon of this age, in this condition, made of 95% silver means that it was almost certainly made between 1697 (when Britannia standard was introduced) and 1720 (when it was made “optional”).

Given the styling of the spoon, its construction, the wear and the personalisation, I think we can finally, almost-definitively say that it is from the end of the 17th century.





History Bits #8 – The “MacGuffin”

 

“It’s heavy!…What is it?”
“The uh…stuff that dreams are made of”

“The Maltese Falcon” (1941)

THE MACGUFFIN

If you’ve studied creative writing or filmmaking in any decent capacity, then you’ve probably come across this term at least once in your life.

The MacGuffin.

But what is it? Where does it come from? What does it mean? Let’s find out…


The term was coined by screenwriter, and Alfred Hitchcock collaborator, Angus MacPhail sometime in the 1930s, meaning that the term “MacGuffin” has now been in use for nearly 100 years, across plays, novels, TV shows, and films. It pops up in all kinds of adaptations, and all sorts of storylines. It is not central to any specific type of genre, and can be found in almost anything, from adventure to mystery, action to spy-thrillers.

But what is a “MacGuffin”?

A “MacGuffin”, as defined by Alfred Hitchcock himself, was…

“…the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story…”

That is to say – it is a plot-device. An element of the story that drives the narrative forward, and which is the focus of the attention of all the main characters – the one thing that they’re chasing after during some (if not all) of the film.

As Hitchcock said:

“…in [criminal] stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is almost always the papers…”

A MacGuffin is something which drives the narrative (and characters) forward, but which, in-and-of-itself, holds no real significance, and which loses more and more of that significance the further the story progresses, whereupon, by the end of the narrative, the MacGuffin has become (or very nearly becomes) completely irrelevant. Indeed, the MacGuffin could even be destroyed (and some MacGuffins are) at, or near the end of the film or novel, and this doesn’t even effect the plot, since, as mentioned – the MacGuffin has been of decreasing significance to the plot since the moment of its introduction.

The true test of a MacGuffin is whether it passes this test of insignificance. If the MacGuffin could be replaced by something totally different, and if it could be destroyed or changed, without affecting the plot of the story itself, it is a MacGuffin.

Once you understand this definition, it’s amazing how many MacGuffins you will find in all kinds of filmic and literary creations. Famous examples of MacGuffins include the Horcruxes, or the Philosopher’s Stone from “Harry Potter“, the Ring from “Lord of the Rings“, the Necklace from “Titanic“, the Letters of Transit in “Casablanca“, the stolen money in “PSYCHO“, the unopened parcel in “Castaway“, and countless other examples, far too numerous to mention.

At the beginning of each story, these items (or even people, or other things – a MacGuffin isn’t necessarily an object) all sound frightfully important, and all the main characters want these items, but by the end of it all…they’ve lost all significance…and if you replaced them with something else, or even if you destroyed them, the basic plot of the story wouldn’t have changed one bit.

For all we care, Frodo could’ve been trying to burn a donut in Mount Doom, and the plot of the story would not have changed, because the end-result is the same. Therefore, the Ring is a MacGuffin.

This brings up another Hitchcock quote:

“…a MacGuffin is actually nothing at all…”

Which is true – a MacGuffin could be anything, and nothing, all at once. All that matters is that the characters in the film or novel WANT IT!! (my prrreeecious!!), that it drives the plot forward, that it becomes insignificant, and keeps you, the audience, guessing. Not because you want to know what it is (some of the best MacGuffins are never revealed – for example – we’re never shown what’s inside the briefcase in “Pulp Fiction”), but because you want to see what happens next in the character-arcs and plot development as they chase the MacGuffin.

Where Does “MacGuffin” come From?

The very word “MacGuffin” is, in a way, a MacGuffin itself. We don’t know what it is, nor what it means, where it comes from, or what it signifies. The term is most closely associated with famed thriller director Alfred Hitchcock, but while he used it often in his films, he did not originate the term, crediting his friend McPhail. McPhail is the first-known person to use the word “MacGuffin”, but it is not recorded when, where, or how this came to be. And, in the sense of a true MacGuffin, it’s not really significant, since even if we changed the origins, how a MacGuffin is used today is still exactly the same as it was back in the 40s and 50s when Hitchcock was using it.

A more recent example of a MacGuffin in modern times is the elusive “Rabbit’s Foot” in Mission Impossible III. They spend the whole film chasing after it, but by the end of the film, whatever it really was has lost all significance to the plot. On top of that, none of the characters even know what it is, or really, why it’s important. They just know that they have to have it. It is a MacGuffin.

Possibly the most famous “MacGuffin” in history, and one which beautifully illustrates just exactly what a MacGuffin is, is the black falcon statuette from the 1941 film “The Maltese Falcon“.

All the characters are desperately seeking the statuette, to attain it, to save it, protect it, to grow rich off of it…whatever their motivations may be…but when they finally attain it, they realise that actually, it’s nothing more than a worthless knockoff! A forgery made of lead, and has thusly, lost all significance to the characters, while the quest for the Falcon has driven the entire film. At this stage, you realise that the Falcon could’ve been anything at all, and the basic plot of the film would not have changed. Again – they could’ve been chasing a donut…

TRADITIONAL TEXTILES: Where Does our Cloth Come From?

 

In today’s world of polyester, acrylic and spandex, traditional textiles and fibres can be increasingly difficult to find when it comes to buying quality clothing. What are the origins of the fibres used to create the textiles which our parents and grandparents grew up with, in the days before manmade fibres started to dominate the fabric-making world?

In this posting, we’ll find out together! We’ll find out what various fibres and textiles are, what they’re used for, and where they come from. While there are a multitude of fibres out there, I’ll just be covering the most common ones in this posting, or it could go on forever!

So rug up, and get comfortable…

COTTON

Used to make all kinds of fabrics, from toweling to velour to seersucker, and used to make all kinds of garments, from shirts, to blouses, to socks, and undergarments, cotton has been cultivated for centuries. That said, cotton, which grows in warm environments, is extremely difficult to harvest! Picking the bolls of cotton from the plants by hand was a slow, labour-intensive, and even painful exercise. Although the plant itself has no thorns or spines, the cotton boll – the bulb, or ‘fruit’ of the cotton plant – can be hard and spiky. When the boll opens, you gain access to the fluffy cotton fibres inside.

Once you’ve picked the cotton, it must then be processed to remove all the seeds caught up inside the fibres – an extremely slow, laborious process which took hours to complete! This is what slaves in the American South had to deal with day in, day out, for weeks on end during harvest-time on cotton-producing plantations back in the 1700s and 1800s. To make cotton-processing easier, Eli Whitney invented the cotton engine, or “Cotton Gin”. Raw, unprocessed cotton fluff was stuffed into one end of the machine, and a crank was turned, spinning a spiked drum. The drum-spikes basically ‘combed’ the cotton fibres through a mesh, teasing them out bit by bit. The mesh was just wide enough to let the cotton fibres through, but not large enough to admit the seeds caught up in the fibres. In this way, the raw cotton fibres could be separated from the seeds, and pure cotton could be gathered up, baled, and shipped out for spinning and weaving into fabric.

Once packed and shipped, raw, processed cotton was sent to cotton mills, either in the northern United States, or across the Atlantic to the UK. Here, it was spun and woven into fabric. The deafening noise of the rattling looms and spinning-wheels caused some cotton-mill workers to go deaf. It’s the origin of the term “Cloth Ears”, meaning an inability to hear properly.

LINEN

Light, airy and breathable, linen is the fabric produced from the fibres of the flax plant. Because of its light weight, softness and absorptive nature, linen fabric is often used for warm-weather clothing. Linen jackets, trousers and suits, linen shirts and handkerchiefs…linen was also used for toweling and bedsheets, which is why we still have the terms “bath linen” and “bed linen” today. Linen is generally the recommended material for summertime clothing because of its thin, strong, breathable, and lightweight construction.

SILK

We’ve all heard of the expression ‘smooth as silk’, but where does silk come from?

Silk is the thread which is extracted from the cocoons of the silkworm (the adorably-named ‘bombix mori’).

Silkworms eating mulberry leaves

Silkworms are now purposefully farmed and bred to produce silk, and the little critters are pretty pampered for the luxurious fibre that they generate. They’re fed almost exclusively on the leaves of the White Mulberry tree, although they can eat a (limited) number of other leaves. Sericulture, the practice of farming silkworms, has a history of at least 5,000 years, and originated in China. For literally thousands of years, China was the main producer, and exporter of silk, and guarded its silk-weaving and silk-farming processes jealously! Europeans loved silk for its softness and smoothness, its strength, and durability, but getting silk was almost impossible. Imperial decrees forbade anybody from detailing to a “foreign barbarian” where, how, when, or with what silk was manufactured, and Europeans remained in ignorance for centuries.

Eventually, knowledge of silk leaked out of China, and by the Middle Ages, silk-farming and production had begun in the Middle East and later, in Europe.

Silk has incredible properties. Spun, and then woven into fabric, it’s incredibly strong and dense, despite its light weight, and this made it ideal for all kinds of garment-making applications. In fact, some of the world’s first bulletproof vests were made of silk! Layers and layers and layers of silk were placed on top of each other, and then firmly stitched and quilted together, to form a thin, but very firm protective cloth padding which was impenetrable by arrows, and even by various types of gunfire. It’s how a lot of body-armour was produced before the invention of kevlar.

WOOL

Shorn from sheep (or lambs), wool has been used for centuries for everything from blankets and bedding, to tunics, hose, trousers, jackets, suits, coats, scarves and mittens. Depending on how it’s been carded, spun, and woven, wool can be anything from soft and plush to thick and fluffy, to smooth and luxurious!

These days, most “wool” garments are not pure wool. To give it strength and durability, it’s usually blended with synthetic fibres (polyester) to create a ‘wool-blend’. High-quality wool-blends are anywhere from 60-40 wool-poly, up to 80-20 or even 90-10 wool-poly. Wool has incredible water-shedding properties, as well as insulation, for warmth. It’s also robust against grime and light stains, and, depending on how it’s constructed – even fireproof!…although for that last quality, you’d want 100% wool construction.

Back in the old days, wool garments were 100% wool, and you can still find that today, if you know where and how to look, but they will cost more.

CASHMERE

Fluffy cashmere goats!

Mmmm…cashmere! Soft, fluffy, smooth, and warm. Cashmere is the name of the wool that is shorn from the Cashmere or “Kashmir” goat, which is native to India and Pakistan. Famed for centuries for its softness, cashmere is used for scarves, socks, coats, and other winter-weather clothing. As with pure-wool fabric, pure-cashmere is expensive. To stretch the budget a bit, cashmere may also be blended, almost always with wool, or sometimes, silk, for a more lightweight finish.

ALPACA

A type of camelid native to South America (in particular, Peru), alpaca wool is again, one more step above just ordinary sheep-wool. What makes Alpaca and Cashmere wool so popular is that the fibres of their wool are so extremely fine. This means that any fabric produced from their wool is both thin, and lightweight, but also incredibly dense, which makes them beautifully soft, and warm. Alpaca wool is used for blankets, scarves, and winter clothes due to its natural insulating properties and luxuriously soft texture.

VICUNA

Ever heard of vicuna? Probably not! That’s hardly surprising, considering that at one point, this little South American camelid was very-nearly extinct! Today, they’re no-longer extinct (yay!!)…but that fact has done little to hide the fact that vicuna wool is the MOST EXPENSIVE WOOL IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

How expensive?

Well, for any reasonably sized vicuna-wool garment (say, a suit, an overcoat, a jacket, etc), you can expect to pay MULTIPLE TENS of THOUSANDS of dollars.

This is because of two main reasons: Vicuna wool is extremely fine and soft, and therefore, dense, and high quality (Oooh, luxury!), but also, because vicuna are small animals, and only produce a relatively tiny amount of wool each year. In an entire year, you’d be lucky to get more than a few tons of fleeces out of the global population of vicunas. Not a few hundred tons, not a few thousand…just…a few tons. And that’s it. And because vicuna only live in South America, you also have to factor in import and transportation costs for this valuable fibre, which drives the already high prices up even higher!…just to get your hands on what would be only a few hundred kilos of wool, if that.






HISTORY BITS #7 – Antique Boot-Pulls

 

As the weather changes and as things start to get colder, wetter, windier and rainier down here in the Merry old Land of Oz…it’s time for a change in footwear.

Away with the huaraches, the sandals, and the loafers or whatever…and out with the boots to slosh through the rain and sludge that inevitably comes with winter weather.

And also, out with the constant struggle to PULL YOUR GODDAMN BOOTS ON! Right?? Oh lord above…

If you’re a fan of “Chelsea”-style boots – of either the suede, or leather variety, or of slip-on boots in general, then this is a struggle you’re probably far too painfully familiar with. No doubt you’ve twisted your ankle or snapped a shoehorn or two, just trying to leave the house in the morning while pulling your boots on – but what’s the alternative?

Well – the alternative is a neat little Victorian-era invention known as a boot-hook, or boot-pull.

Most pairs of boots will come with a little leather or cloth tab or loop at the back of the boot, above the heel. If they’re large enough, you can just shove your fingers in there and pull your boots on and you’re done. Easy.

But what if those tabs are really small, or what if you have huge fingers? What if you just can’t get a grip on those tabs, and instead, they stare up at you, mocking you for your incompetence and lack of lateral thinking?

Well – in situations like that – you use boot-pulls!

Boot pulls come in all lengths, shapes, sizes and styles. They can be brand-new, they can be plastic, they can be antique, like mine, they can be fixed, or they can even be compact, folding models.

Regardless of style or age, boot-pulls are typically between 6-12 inches long, and usually have a grab-handle at the top, which you can hook your fingers around. Under that is a shaft, with a flat, angular hook at the bottom.

Why flat? So that the pull-tabs on your boots get even pressure put on them when you pull. A curved hook would compress all that force into one point and damage your boot tabs…plus, a curved hook is harder to slide into the tab-loop.


They also come with flat, blunt hook-tips, so that they can slide easily in and out of your boot-tabs without cutting, snagging or pulling on them accidentally. Once you’ve mastered using them, you’ll be able to pull your boots on with no problems at all. Simply slip your foot into your boot, feed the hook through the tab or loop at the back, and pull firmly upwards. It may take you one or two attempts to get the hook through the hole, but once you’ve done it, all you need is a firm tug to get your boots on.

Apart from just making boots faster to pull on when you’re getting dressed boot-pulls are great for people who might have back or leg issues which prevent them from bending over, kneeling, or reaching behind them with ease. If you have any of those issues, and hate wearing laced-up shoes, you might consider changing to boots and buying a set of boot-pulls for yourself.

Where to Buy Boot Pulls?

Boot-pulls can be found easily online on sites like eBay and such-like. My set is an antique pair with round, bone handles. I bought them at the local flea-market about four years ago, for like $20.00. You can also find antique sets on antique dealers’ sites, or on eBay, with handles made of wood, or bone. They can either be bought for next to nothing, or can cost several hundred dollars. Of course, how much you want to spend is up to you. I once saw a single hook for sale for about $450.00!! I love my boots, but not that much!

Montblanc Meisterstuck No. 146 Vermeil Sterling Barleycorn Fountain Pen

 

…or what you can find when you least expect it!

This amazing score, and the latest addition to my pen-collection, was made just before the new year.

I hardly ever browse sites like Gumtree, usually because the chances of finding nice stuff on there is not very high – and when you do find stuff, it’s usually heavily overpriced – but this time – this time – I got lucky.

Extraordinarily lucky.

Sterling silver fountain pens are already expensive. Montblanc pens are even more expensive.

Sterling silver Montblanc pens are even more expensive than that!

Sterling silver Montblanc pens which also have vermeil (gold-on-silver) finishes?

I’ll let you do the maths on that one. Or, you could just go on eBay right now, type in “Vermeil Silver Montblanc Pen”, and then have a heart-attack over the prices…because that’s what I did the first time I ever looked into buying one!

As with the last pen which I wrote about in this blog, this model, which, like the last one, is a 146-sized pen – is part of the Montblanc “Solitaire” lineup, meaning that it’s a pen which is made of a precious metal – in this case – sterling silver.

Yep – I said sterling silver. Don’t let that fancy gold finish fool you! It’s vermeil – 18kt gold-filling over a sterling silver base. The cap on the pen is marked “925” for 92.5% purity of silver – the Sterling Standard.

This particular pen has the ripply, gripply “Barleycorn” finish, which was one of two finishes available to people buying a Montblanc Solitaire pen back in the 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s. The other finish was known as the “Pinstripe” variant. A third, significantly rarer style was the “Chevron” finish, which featured a chevron pattern across the pen.

Finding the Vermeil Barleycorn 146

I stumbled across this pen on Gumtree shortly after Christmas, and after thoroughly examining the pen, decided to buy it. The price was outrageously cheap (for a Montblanc in sterling silver, at any rate) and I knew that this would be a once-in-a-lifetime purchase. I was thrilled that it came complete with the box and cardboard sleeve, the instruction-booklet and everything else – usually, these are the first things to be hucked into the trash when you buy anything short of gold jewelry.

The pen was in fantastic condition. It had – as far as I could tell – never been touched, never been used, and had probably only come out of the box a handful of times in its life, if ever.

Of course, with something this cheap, the first thing you always think about is whether it might be fake.

Right?

Of course right! But just because something is at a price that’s too good to refuse, doesn’t mean that you should, right? Well of course not – because you never know – it might be a deal that IS too good to refuse, and which you would regret, if you did. Provided that you know what to look out for.

After close examination of the photographs, I determined that the pen was real, and that the price was too good to pass up. But as they say – ours is not to reason why – ours is but to view…and buy!

Because of the valuable nature of the package, it was shipped express, at no extra cost, and arrived safe and sound, three days after postage.

My Review of the Pen

If I had to sum up this pen in as few words as possible, I’d say that it was smooth, weighty, and wet.

The nib certainly writes as a medium, as opposed to a fine, and writes really glossy, smooth, and wet. The nib lays down a generous flow of ink without flooding the page, but also without feeling like it’s skimping on anything. At no point did I feel like the pen was going to run dry. That’s a characteristic of Montblanc pens that I’ve noticed over the years – when they write, they lay down really generous ink-flow. If you’re a fast writer, you’ll appreciate something like this.


Apart from the nib, however, this pen has a lot more metal on it than ordinary Montblancs. The cap and barrel are both sheathed in solid silver, one noticeable difference between this pen and a regular 146 is that this pen (like the sterling-striped variant in my previous posting) is much heavier! So for example – a Montblanc 149 “Diplomat”, which is a physically larger pen, weighs only 38g fully-inked…whereas this pen, while physically smaller – weighs 51g fully-inked. If you’re a fan of lightweight fountain pens – then chasing a silver or even a gold Montblanc of this size is definitely not for you.

Is the pen uncomfortable to write with? No. But that said, I wouldn’t be placing the cap on the end of the barrel (“posting”) while doing so, just because the weight may throw your balance off a bit. Unlike with a regular 146 pen, this one, with its silver cap, will add significant weight to the pen, which may pull the nib off the page and cause you to put more effort into your writing.

Concluding Remarks

The Montblanc 146 Sterling Vermeil in Barleycorn is a beautiful pen. Expensive, yes, but beautiful. If you’re not the kind for loud, garish writing instruments, it’s probably not for you – but if you want a somewhat overstated and elegant writing instrument with which to jot down your next shopping-list – this is the pen for you. Of course, they are very expensive, but if you’re patient enough and play your cards right, you can find amazing pens for amazing bargains. Just make sure that what you decide to buy is the genuine article, and that you haven’t been taken for a ride, and you should be fine.

A Solid 9ct Gold Antique Toothpick

 

Sometimes, you really can find stuff that you never expect to find, stuff that you never even thought would exist.

I picked this up from a local jewelry dealer while browsing my local flea-market. It’s not much, and nor did it cost that much, either. I mean, it’s only two-and-a-half inches long, after all, and not even high-grade gold…but it is gold!

Yep. The mark on the shaft is there for all the world to see: “9ct”, for 9ct gold…or 37.5% purity.

With its loopy handle, twisted shaft, and spearpoint tip, you’d probably never mistake something like this, or of this size, to be anything else. I’d never really thought about buying, owning, and having added to my collection – a solid gold toothpick – but now that I’d seen one – why not? I mean, how many people even know these things exist, or indeed, what they are?

A History of Gold Toothpicks

It may surprise you, but gold toothpicks aren’t nearly as uncommon as you might think.

Back in the 1700s and 1800s, they used to be quite common – and were one of several types of luxury accessories or pieces of jewelry that were carried around, by both men, and women.

Most gold toothpicks were of the retractable type – similar to a sliding, retractable pencil. The shaft of the toothpick was affixed to the inside of a gold (or silver, if you couldn’t afford gold) cylindrical sleeve. When not in use, the toothpick was retracted, and hung on a gold chain or necklace. When it was required, the toothpick was slid out of its sleeve, exposing the shaft and the familiar spear-point tip. Once used, the toothpick was wiped down, and slid back inside its sleeve for safekeeping.

Of course, open models, without a sliding metal sleeve, also existed – that’s what I have!

Toothpicks like this in gold and silver were very common in the 1700s and 1800s, and even into the early 1900s. In an age when dental hygiene was not what it perhaps could be…(eurgh!)…using a toothpick to scrape the gunk and stuck food off of your teeth was one way to at least try and keep them clean. That, and it avoided the awkward situation of talking to someone when you’ve got a chunk of something jammed between two teeth…which is uncomfortable at the best of times, let alone unsightly.

Carrying Your Toothpick

Such toothpicks became so common that there was actually a surprisingly good trade being done not only in toothpicks, but also in toothpick cases! Numerous Victorian and Georgian-era examples exist made of everything from solid gold to ivory, bone, tortoiseshell and sterling silver. Some of these boxes, which are typically long, flat and rectangular, even came with built-in mirrors underneath the lid (like a lipstick case!) so that the owner could hold it up to their mouth and uh…ahem…make sure that they were hitting all the right spots.

Victorian-era concerns over dental hygiene meant that it was common for people to carry toothpicks around with them when they went out for a meal. The sooner you could deal with that chunk of toast stuck in your teeth, or that sliver of roast pork, the more easily you could clean your teeth properly, later…that, and it’s not very nice to spend an evening out while also wearing the remnants of dinner on your teeth – if people want to know what you ate, they should ask you, not look at you.

To carry one’s toothpick, it was either suspended on a gold or silver chain in a manner similar to a pendant necklace, or else was stored in one of those aforementioned toothpick cases. If the former (which was common for women) then it would be hung around the neck as a piece of jewelry. If the latter, then either stored in one’s handbag, or kept in one’s suit-jacket pocket until required.

The Death of the Metal Toothpick

Do gold and silver toothpicks still exist today? Absolutely! You can buy them on eBay right now. Granted, the silver versions are more common, but gold ones do still exist, even if they’re usually much, much more expensive. Gold examples are typically made of either 9 or 14kt gold, and silver ones are sterling silver.

That said, they’re not as common as they used to be. Nowadays, it’s much more common to carry around a plastic, or even a cheap, throwaway wooden toothpick, sharpened to a point. However, with fears over cross-contamination and germ-spreading, especially in the wake of the petering-out COVID-19 Pandemic, the use of individually-carried toothpicks might see a resurgence now, since the idea of digging into a communal container which everybody else has touched, to select something which you’re then going to put into your mouth…doesn’t sound particularly hygienic.

Buying a Gold or Silver Toothpick

“Y’know what? Buying and owning my own precious-metal toothpick, instead of using disposables, and contributing to waste, landfill, and cross-contamination – sounds like a good idea!…where can I get one?”

Well – there’s always the antique variants – they’re often found on eBay or other online selling-sites, or in antiques shops, but you can also buy the modern ones. Retractable silver and gold toothpicks still exist, and there are companies which still make them. From what I’ve seen, these are mostly produced in China or other Asian countries, where heavy toothpick use is still common. Of course, a silver toothpick will be much easier to find than a gold one, and will also cost significantly less – although – given how small they are – even a gold one doesn’t cost that much – which is how I was able to buy mine.

As for my own – I don’t know that much about it, except that it was likely manufactured in the UK, and in the early 1900s. There’s only one other mark on it apart from the “9ct”, and that appears to be a maker’s mark – which sadly, I haven’t been able to trace.

Regardless – this has got to be one of the most interesting (and the smallest!) antiques I’ve ever added to my collection!