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.
With the rise of internet gaming, gaming consoles, and PC gaming, traditional tabletop games such as card-games, chess, checkers, carom, etc, are starting to lose out in the face of stiff competition from their more hip, on-screen counterparts. However, one game which has never seemed to die out, even in the digital age, is the age-old Chinese favourite called…Mahjong!
The most famous of all Chinese traditional games, in this blog-posting, we’ll be looking at the history of mahjong, how it’s played, where it came from, where it went, and what happened to it along the way.
So, shuffle your tiles, build your walls, form your melds, and place your bets!
It’s time to go mahjonging…
Mahjong – What’s in a Name?
‘Mahjong’ is the accepted modern spelling of the traditional Chinese game known as “Mah Jiang”. The most literal translation of the word ‘mahjong’ is ‘sparrows’ (‘Mah’ in Chinese), or ‘chattering sparrows’. This is believed to have been derived from the clattering, chattering, clacking noise produced by traditional mahjong tiles, which sound like chittering, fluttering birds.
An alternative spelling of the game – chiefly used in the United States – is “Mah Jongg” – for some reason, with two ‘g’s on the end. This is actually a trademarked name, and is not in any way related to the traditional Chinese pronunciation, Wade-Giles Romanisation, or pinyin spelling. I’ll explain how it got its “two-g’s” spelling, further on down in the article.
The History of Mahjong
The exact origins of mahjong are unknown. Where, when and by whom the game was invented have been lost to history. Creative marketing, myths, and legend, will tell you that mahjong is an ancient game, invented thousands of years ago, by the great Chinese philosopher, Confucius, as a way to train the mind, that it was played by the concubines and empresses in the Forbidden City in Peking, and that from these lofty beginnings, the game was gradually democratised over the passing centuries to the Chinese peasantry, to become the national game of China!
…Right?
I’m very sorry to disappoint you, but…none of that is even slightly true! Not one bit of it.
Detective-work and educated guesses by Chinese historians seem to have traced the game’s roots to Chinese card-games played in the 17th and 18th centuries. Such games were similar to modern Poker, or Gin-Rummy, which are the closest European equivalents to modern mahjong, in terms of gameplay.
The problem was, of course, that paperboard playing-cards did not last very long. They were easily prone to damage, warping, tearing, and splitting. These thin, paper cards were difficult to hold, fiddly to handle, and lightweight, which means they can blow away in the wind…hardly ideal when you’re in the middle of a game.
The game that’s most similar to mahjong, before mahjong itself was invented, is known as Yezipai, or simply “Yezi”. It was played using small slivers or slices of ivory, bone, or wood, an improvement on paper cards, but still not as hard-wearing as modern mahjong tiles. The thin sheets of ivory and bone were easily broken and could be snapped in half, ruining an entire deck due to one person’s clumsiness!
It’s for this reason that someone – nobody knows who – decided to transfer the designs on the cards onto durable, heavyweight bone and ivory tiles – solid blocks which could be stacked, stood up, laid down, packed and unpacked easily, and which could withstand years of heavy-handed playing.
When this transition took place, nobody seems to know, but it appears to have happened by the early 1800s. As for where the game was invented, that’s a bit more straightforward: In the first half of the 19th century, when mahjong was likely in its infancy, the game was only really being played in one location in China: Ningpo.
A port city in Zhejiang Province, Ningpo was one of several “treaty ports” opened by the British as a result of the unequal Treaty of Nanking, which ended the 1839-1842 First Opium War.
The chief British diplomat stationed in Ningpo in the mid-1800s was a man named Frederick E.B. Harvey. Harvey’s official title was British Consul to Ningpo, and he was in charge of the British Consulate within the city.
Frederick E. Harvey, British Consul to Ningpo. Ca. 1855.
Harvey’s diplomatic career in China started in Hong Kong. Thereafter he was transferred to the International Settlement of Shanghai, and finally, to Ningpo, in 1859.
It was while living in Ningpo that Harvey met a man named Chen Yumen – the person who would introduce him to the relatively new game called ‘Mahjong’.
Harvey’s letters home to England, and diary-entries while living in Ningpo, are the first written English records detailing the gameplay, rules, and culture surrounding mahjong. His writings are also among the first references, in any language – to the existence of mahjong in any capacity, giving us a fairly accurate starting date for mahjong in the early 1800s.
From its creation in Ningpo, mahjong spread to Shanghai, Peking, Tientsin, and eventually, to all of China.
Mahjong in the 20th Century
For most of the 1800s, mahjong remained a largely Chinese game, played wherever four Chinese people could be found to fill a mahjong table, but this started to change at the end of the 19th century.
Chinese migration in the second half of the 1800s, and the turn of the 1900s saw the game being exported to ethnic Chinese communities overseas, such as those in San Francisco and New York in the United States, to the British Asian colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore, and to other cities with large Chinese populations such as London in England, or Toronto, in Canada. Western exposure to mahjong started largely in the early 1900s – and a lot of it had to do with one city:
Shanghai.
As mentioned previously, mahjong is believed to have been invented in, or near, the city of Ningpo, on the southern shores of Hangzhou Bay in Zhejiang Province.
Well, if you study a map of China, you’ll find out that the nearest major city to Ningpo is just across the bay, and a few miles north – the city of Shanghai – built around the Huangpu River, which leads to the Yangtze nearby.
By the late 1800s, knowledge of mahjong had spread to Shanghai. This larger, more cosmopolitan city adopted the game, and made it their own. Mahjong was played everywhere in Shanghai, from inside peoples’ homes, to public parks, teahouses, private clubs, and even in dedicated mahjong houses. Mahjong manufacturing was also centered around Shanghai. The large, urban population meant that there were loads of off-cuts of the materials used to make mahjong sets: Wood, bone, ivory, and bamboo, so the city was the natural location where mahjong sets would be produced.
Four men playing mahjong. Fuxin, China. 1956. Getty Images.
It was from Shanghai that mahjong was exported, either physically, or by word-of-mouth, around the world. It was in Shanghai, or more specifically, within the confines of the International Settlement, that mahjong was first exposed in a big way to Western audiences. British, American, French, Russian, and Jewish expats living in Shanghai (known as “Shanghailanders”) became fascinated with the game, and started playing it with their Chinese friends.
At the same time, Western tourists visiting Shanghai were purchasing sets of mahjong, and taking them home as souvenirs, or writing about them in letters and postcards, and posting these back to loved ones and friends in Europe and North America. Expats who had lived in Shanghai for some number of years, and who had come to love the game, purchased mahjong sets as mementos of their Chinese adventures, and likely played mahjong during the long steamer-journeys home to the USA, Canada, or Europe, exposing the game to even more foreigners.
Mahjong in the West
It was in this way that mahjong started catching on in Western countries – particularly Britain, Canada, the United States, and countries in Western Europe which had extensive contact with China. Mahjong started being imported to the USA in the early 1920s by Standard Oil Company executive Joseph Park Babcock. Babcock had headed up the Standard Oil office in Shanghai, operating out of the International Settlement. While living in China, Babcock and his wife had developed a taste for mahjong, and he got the notion into his head that if he marketed it correctly – mahjong could become huge in the United States!
To this end, Babcock wrote a simplified rule-book for mahjong, and started marketing it aggressively as “Mah-Jongg” (with two g’s) in the USA.
A mahjong demonstration at Selfridges Department Store, London. Ca. 1925.
Mahjong was already starting to gain traction in the U.S., because of, as I mentioned previously – written references to the game in letters and postcards, and because foreign tourists were bringing back mahjong sets from China as souvenirs of their travels. However, it was Joseph P. Babcock’s creative streak that really set the ball rolling when it came to the arrival of mahjong in the United States.
Along with the simplified rules and importing new sets directly from Shanghai, Babcock came up with a whole fanciful “history” for the game. In the early 1900s, all things “Oriental” were highly en-vogue in the Western world. Chinese-style clothing, dresses, furniture, food, Chinese decorative elements and colour-schemes, were all the rage. Look no further than the reconstruction of Chinatown in San Francisco, post-1906, as one example.
“Since Ma is Playing Mahjong!”, from 1924. Notice that the title is spelled the conventional way – “Mah Jong”.
It was into this heady mix of fried rice, silk robes, chopsticks, and a blur of red, black, and yellow hues, that the first large-scale Western contact with mahjong had entered. Mahjong was seen as being mysterious, new, exciting, dangerous, hedonistic, and exotic! No game like it had existed in the West before, and Americans bought up mahjong so fast that importers working with manufacturers in Shanghai couldn’t keep up with demand! Luxurious mahjong sets made of beautiful woods, with inlaid cases decorated with polished metalwork, and intricately carved tiles were bought and sold by, and from big-name department stores and gaming-products manufacturers, such as Parker Brothers in the US (more famous these days for selling “CLUE”).
Mahjong became so popular in America that there was even a song written about it! “Ma is Playing Mahjong”, from 1924! The lyrics are, perhaps, not very politically correct, 100 years later, but its existence speaks to the incredible impact that mahjong had on American culture. You can listen to it here…
It was in this way that mahjong became incredibly popular in the United States, starting in the 1910s and 20s, and going right through the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, and well into the present-day!
Four men playing mahjong. 1947.Getty Images.
While mahjong thrived in the West, mahjong in China was under attack! During the Cultural Revolution – the ten-year period between 1966-1976, mahjong was banned in China for being a decadent, wasteful extravagance, and an “old idea” that had no place in the “New China”! The ban was lifted upon the end of the Revolution, when Chairman Mao died in 1976.
The Mahjong Set
Obviously, to play mahjong, you need a mahjong set. A traditional mahjong set comes with dice (at least two, and sometimes up to four), a wind-disc or indicator, with wind-directions engraved or printed on it in Chinese characters, tally-sticks (for scoring) or tokens / coins (again, for scoring), and last, but not least – the tiles!
A full mahjong set contains 144 tiles, divided into suits. The suits are:
The Circles Suit of mahjong.
Circles, Bamboo, Wan (or ‘characters’), Winds, Dragons, Honours, and Bonuses, also called Flowers and Seasons. Unless you’re playing competitive mahjong, the bonuses/flower tiles, can be discarded, as they won’t affect play unless you’re actually scoring the game. Because of this, mahjong sets which are bought just to enjoy the fun of the game, rather than for competition, usually exclude these tiles, for a set of 136 tiles, instead.
Each suit has four sets of tiles with numbers going from 1-9, for circles, bamboo, the wan/characters, and four-each, of the winds, and dragons. By tradition, One of Bamboo is indicated by a bird (usually a peacock, or similar). The “Wan” tiles have numbers in Chinese characters, with another character (the “wan”) underneath. “Wan” is the Chinese word for “10,000”, so for example, a two-wan tile is actually “20,000”. Again, this is used in scoring the game, but when playing for fun, most people ignore this stuff. There are four-each, of the honours and bonus tiles.
To play the game effectively, at the very least, you will require a pair of dice, and a full set of mahjong tiles (which, again, is 144 pieces).
In the 1800s and during the first half of the 20th century, when mahjong was at its height of international popularity, mahjong sets were sold in fantastically elaborate cases. These cases or cabinets had handles, sliding doors, and tile-drawers to hold the tiles and paraphernalia for playing. Today, such cabinets (there’s usually 4-5 drawers – one for each suit, and a fifth drawer for the bits and pieces), in good condition, complete with their sets of playing tiles and accessories, cost hundreds, or even thousands of dollars each.
Modern mahjong sets, usually made of melamine plastic (unless you’re rich enough to afford a handmade set which is produced the old-fashioned way using bone and bamboo!) are sold in simple briefcase-style boxes for ease of storage and transport. Some modern-day manufacturers, looking to recapture the beauty of the antique cases from the 1900s, will produce modern-day sets in vintage-style cases, complete with the handles, sliding doors and pull-out drawers.
How to Play Mahjong!
Now that you have your mahjong set, you need to know how to use it! How do you play with it? How do you win? What’s the POINT OF THE GAME!?
The following instructions are given based on the use of a traditional mahjong set – which has 144 tiles– and gameplay as followed using traditional Chinese/Hong-Kong-style rules.
The aim of a game of mahjong is to build a winning hand of tiles (14 in number) comprised of FOUR MELDS and ONE PAIR.
A “meld” is a grouping of tiles, and a pair is…a…pair! Two matched, identical tiles.
There are three traditional melds:
Pong, Kong, and Chow, also spelled as “Pung”, “Gung”, “Chi”, and various other spellings, depending on Chinese dialects. For the sake of simplicity, I will use “Pong, Kong and Chow”.
A “Pong” is three identical tiles. For example – three white dragons.
A “Kong” is four identical tiles. For example – four West Winds.
A “Chow” is three suited tiles in-sequence. For example – one-two-three of bamboo, circles, or wans, or 2, 3, 4, or 4, 5, 6…you get the idea.
Once you have built four melds (which would usually be 12 tiles), then you have to get your “pair” – two identical tiles. Once you’ve got that, you’ve won the game! Traditionally, the winner will clamp their winning hand together between their fingers, and then slam them down on the table in triumph, to announce their winning hand! (trust me, you should totally do this. It’s a lot of fun!).
And that’s basically it. There are other details, which I’ll go into later on, so keep reading…
Setting up the Game
To play a game of mahjong, you need at least two people (and ideally, four), a square, or circular table, and plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely afternoon of gossip, gameplay, tea-drinking, and shouted profanity, when you find out that someone has beat you at the table!
First, you have to “wash” or shuffle the tiles. Once the tiles are shuffled, you have to build your walls.
There are four walls. If you’re using a traditional 144-tile set, then the walls are 36 tiles each, or two rows of 18 tiles, double-stacked.
The ritual of building the walls is one of the reasons why mahjong was so fascinating to Europeans when they first saw the game. The customs and intricacies of gameplay were unlike anything they had ever seen with cards, or chess, or checkers. It simply had no comparison to anything in the West. In the American version of mahjong (and yes, there is an American version), this stage of the game is known as “Building the Great Wall of China” (because, why not, right?). It’s another element of the game which harks back to the Western exoticism of mahjong in the early-20th-century.
Once the four walls are built, they’re set out in a square. Then you throw the pair of dice into the square, and count around the players going anti-clockwise until you reach the number of the dice. The person you land on is the dealer.
You throw the dice again, and then count along the dealer’s wall. You break the wall at that number, and then each player takes three stacks of four tiles (so, 12) from that break in the wall, again, going anticlockwise around the walls.
The dealer takes an additional stack, giving them 14 tiles. Every other player takes ONE extra tile (so, 13 tiles). The tiles that you’re given (or have taken) form your “hand”. These are the tiles you will concentrate on for the duration of the game. Got all that? Right! The game is now ready to start.
Playing a Game of Mahjong
To begin, if anybody has “bonus” tiles – Seasons, or Flowers – toss them out. You won’t need them in gameplay unless you’re doing a professional game with scoring. Replace those tiles with fresh tiles from the wall. Take a minute to set up your tiles and arrange them in a way that makes sense to you, and see if you have any patterns emerging, or any melds or pairs you can form. When setting up your tiles, they’re stood up on-end, facing you. This conceals your hand from other players, displays your tiles easily for quick manipulation, and allows you to slide, part, or push your tiles together as required, to build melds and pairs.
Got all that? Right! Next step…
Now, the dealer casts out his first tile to kick the game off. By tradition, a game of mahjong moves in an anticlockwise direction around the table.
A four-player game of mahjong in progress…
Each player TAKES one tile, sets it into their hand, and then CASTS OUT one tile that they don’t need. That is considered one turn. Once a player has done that, play moves to the next participant, and so-on, around the table.
As the game progresses, you’ll end up with two “piles” on the table. One is the “draw pile” or the “wall”, and the other pile (in the middle of the table) is the “discard pile”. These are all the tiles that people have chucked out of their hands that they don’t need. As a courtesy to other players, keep the discard pile neat and tidy, as it helps people to know which tile was freshly discarded, and prevents later confusion during gameplay.
You may take a tile from the discard pile to form a meld, or to complete a winning hand and end the game. However, if you do this, then you must “open” the meld to the rest of the table. So, for example, if someone throws out a tile and you find that taking that tile produces a meld for you, you can grab it and shove it into your hand. But then, you have to drop those tiles down onto the table to show the other players the meld that you’ve built from that discard.
You don’t have to do this if you form a meld from a tile taken from the wall-tiles, during your turn.
And so the game continues until a person has a winning hand of FOUR MELDS and ONE PAIR. A winning hand is typically 14 tiles – four groups of three, and one pair, or 18 tiles – four groups of four, and a pair – although this is much harder to attain, so most people will stick to a 14-tile winning hand.
When you have built your winning hand, line up your tiles in a row, grip them together firmly, and then slam them down onto the table, all together, in one, swift, sure, satisfying, and smug move, to show that you’ve won the game!
And that is how mahjong works! It’s really that simple.
Of course, there are complexities – for example – what type of mahjong are you playing? There’s three main styles – Japanese-style mahjong, also known as “Richii Mahjong” (“Richii!” is what you shout when you’re one tile away from winning!), American-style mahjong, which developed in the 1920s and 30s, and finally, the oldest, and most authentic version – Hong-Kong-style mahjong. Most Asians who play mahjong will have grown up learning Hong Kong-style mahjong.
Buying a Mahjong Set
So – you wanna buy a mahjong set, huh?
Sure! I mean they’re not that hard to buy, are they? There’s loads of them on eBay, AliExpress, and other websites. You can probably buy one in any Chinatown in the world, or while visiting countries with large Chinese populations such as Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, etc. Or, you might just find one at your local weekend flea-market.
If you do buy a set, it’s likely to be a modern set, with plastic tiles, counters, tally-sticks, dice, and other accessories, in a briefcase-style box. If you buy a secondhand set, make sure that the case is in good condition, that all the pieces are present and correct, and that you can open and close the case smoothly and securely – the last thing you want is to pick up the case and have everything spill out! Whoops…
But, I hear you say…
“I Want to Buy one of those Fancy Antique Mahong Sets!”
No problem! You can still buy one of those – but there are a lot more things to think about. Antique sets are more likely to have missing pieces, have structural damage, and of course – have higher prices! Depending on age, condition, completeness and rarity, an antique mahjong set can be had for a few hundred dollars, all the way up to a few thousand dollars!
When buying an antique set, make sure that you have all the tiles – a full set is 144 tiles. A set without the “bonus” or “honour” tiles is 136 tiles. Most sets are one, or the other. If it has less than 136 or 144 tiles, then there’s tiles missing!
Check the case for damage. Splitting, cracking, dovetail-joinery coming apart, and so-on. Check any inlays for fit – if they’re getting loose, you’ll have to poke them out, and glue them back in to prevent loss. Check the drawers to make sure they slide in and out smoothly, and that the handles and doors work properly. A lot of these old cases have split wood, cracks, and faulty joinery, so it pays to check literally every square inch of the case, front and back, side to side, top and bottom. Some faults are repairable with glue, clamping, and reinforcement, others are a total loss.
Check the metalwork, as well. Handles, pull-tabs on the drawers, and the corner-tabs on the sides of the case. Usually, these are brass, or nickel-silver. They’re riveted or hammered into place, so check the nails to make sure that nothing’s coming apart. If it is, nail it back in and glue it in place. Traditionally, these cases were meant to be picked up and carried by their handles – you might not want to do that if it’s a rickety case. A case in good condition should be able to be carried without fear of anything coming apart!
Last but not least – check the tiles themselves. Antique mahjong tiles are made in two parts: An upper tile-face, and a lower tile-base. On the majority of antique sets, these were BONE on top and BAMBOO on the base. Other sets used ivory, or special hardwoods, etc. The tiles are spliced together using dovetail joints. High-quality sets will have solid, firm, secure joints, well carved and tight-fitting. Cheap sets have joints which are loose or in danger of falling apart! Traditionally, no glue was used to hold the tiles together. Simple friction was all that kept them as one.
Antique mahjong sets were manufactured by hand. That means that all the woodwork is hand-cut and joined, and the tiles are hand-cut and dovetailed together. Likewise, the tile-faces are carved or engraved by hand. The more intricate the engraving, the higher-quality the set is. Similarly, the more bone-content you have on each tile, the higher quality the set. Sets with hardly any bone on the tiles are cheap and tacky. Sets with loads of bone in each tile are higher quality, as they can withstand higher-quality, more intricate engravings.
My Antique Mahjong Set
In closing this article, I feel it only proper to write one last chapter – with which to introduce to my readers, my own personal mahjong set.
I bought this at auction back in 2018, and paid what some thought, was a rather exorbitant price, at the time. However, recent developments have shown that I basically paid peanuts for something so valuable that it’s basically irreplaceable…certainly for the price I paid!
Comprised of a rosewood case, complete with brass fittings, a sliding door, and four tile-drawers, my mahjong set is one of my absolute pride-and-joys! I would never sell this, and I love being able to use it. The tiles are made in the traditional way – bone and bamboo, dovetailed together, and carved by hand. I don’t know how old it is, but my guess would be early-to-mid 20th century.
The entire case – including the door, and the four, sliding tile-drawers – is made of Chinese rosewood, or what is known as “huanghuali“, in Chinese. The pull-tabs on the lid, and the tile-drawers are little brass butterflies.
Each drawer holds one suit of tiles. Circles, bamboo, wans, and then the dragons, winds and bonuses all live in one drawer by themselves, for a total of 144 tiles. There’s also two tiny bone dice which go with the set.
One thing you may not have noticed about the set is how incredibly SMALL it is! The case measures just 5.5in. x. 5.5in. x 9in! I’ve seen tissue-boxes bigger than that! The tiles are all half-sized, and they’re absolutely adorable! Here are the various suits of tiles…
The Bamboo Suit, with the peacocksThe Circles SuitThe Wans or Characters Suit. The characters are 1-9, in Chinese, and the red character underneath is “Wan”, which is “10,000”.Last but not least, the Winds, Dragons, and Bonuses. They are East (“Dong”), South (“Nan”), West (“Xi”), and North (“Bei”).
Overall, the set is in fantastic condition. There’s no damage to speak of, and everything is in perfect, working, usable condition. And I do use it! When my friends and I play mahjong, this is the set we use, and we have a lot of fun with it.
A amicable game of mahjong with two of my friends…
Anyway – this concludes this rather lengthy posting, all about mahjong! Its history, how it’s played, and how to buy and use your very own mahjong set.
Happy playing!
Want to Find out More?
Information for this article was gleamed from the website of mahjong historian Gregg Swain, which may be found at Mahjong Treasures.
Additional information was gleamed from the CCTV documentary about the history of mahjong, which may be found on YouTube (or at least, it could be, at the time of writing this posting).
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.
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!
From the early 1800s until the 1930s, China – the Central Kingdom – did a lot of trade with the west. Not all of it willingly, but a lot of it, in the various types of merchandise, materials and curiosities that Western audiences were very eager to acquire: Chinese silks, Chinese porcelain, Chinese tea, various oriental spices, and even Chinese silverware!
These various types of merchandise – furniture, porcelain, silks, silver and suchlike – were known as “exportware” – because they were deliberately made in China, for export (or internal sale in the Concessions) to Western markets. Today, such articles of exportware can be very valuable, and are often sought-after by collectors. A couple of weeks ago, I landed myself my own small piece of exportware – a lovely pair of Chinese export silver chopsticks.
This lovely pair of chopsticks, in solid silver, feature beautiful twisting grips that taper down to thin, cylindrical points, and have lovely carved rings set near the base of the grips, to show where one’s fingers should grip the chopsticks when in use. A set like this would’ve been purchased as a personal set, for individual use – either by the buyer, or as a gift for someone else. Fancy silver chopsticks like this would not have been cheap, but they would certainly have been treasured!
Sets like these are typical of those made in the late 1800s through to the early 1900s, and they’re sometimes identified as “travel” chopsticks. This is because, as you’ll have noticed – they are chained together at the top!
Chaining the sticks together is a deliberate act, and would’ve been done when the chopsticks were being made. It’s actually a far more common practice than you might think, and I’ve seen it done with several sets of antique personal-use chopsticks such as these, in the past. The whole point of the chaining is to prevent the sticks from being separated, and to stop them from being lost. This appears to have been common with personal silver sets like this – but less common with other sets – I’ve never seen this practice applied to antique chopstick-pairs which weren’t made of silver, suggesting that they weren’t valuable enough to warrant this extra effort of making, and then securing, a chain to the top of the sticks to prevent separation.
Using the Chopsticks
So, does the chain get in the way of anything? Does it make the chopsticks harder to use?
Honestly? No!
When held properly and used correctly, the back-end of a pair of chopsticks never moves more than a fraction of an inch, so provided that a proper grip is maintained – the chain will never pose an issue to effective chopstick use – and you’ll be able to eat quite comfortably!
If anything, the fact that the chopsticks are made of silver, is one of the main issues in using them. The silver is really thin, which can make the sticks fiddly to hold, and the tips are really smooth – which means there may not always be sufficient friction to grip the food – so basically eating noodles with these things is an exercise in futility…but anything else that isn’t slick or slippery, should be no more difficult than eating with any other chopsticks.
How old Are They?
The fact that they are export silver chopsticks would mean that a set like these are at least 100 years old. The wear on the silver and the discoloration just from regular use, is enough proof of their age already. On top of that, the heavy use has not only given the sticks a lot of wear and patina, but they’ve also meant that neither stick is 100% straight, either!
Rolling, pressing, and applying gentle pressure has eased out the worst of the warping, but they’ll never be 100% straight…maybe 95%, but that’s about it. This is the sort of wear that only comes from regular use over many, many decades of ownership, and I think it only makes them more quirky and desirable, as well as providing proof of their age.
You honestly never know what you’ll find when you’re browsing the flea-market.
I picked up this neat little walking stick about a week ago!
Normally I don’t buy walking sticks, but I do find them fascinating. For the longest time, walking sticks of one variety or another were popular all over the world, from China to Chile, England to America, Europe to Ecuador! A tradition dating back literally thousands of years, people carrying walking sticks has been done for all kinds of reasons – fashion, infirmity, self-defense, to complete an outfit, to make a statement, to fend off attack, or to assist in traversing rough terrain.
Walking sticks were at their height of popularity in the 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s, when people were traveling and moving around more than ever.
A typical walking stick is comprised of three or four parts:
The Handle
The handle is the grip at the top of the walking stick. It’s either a curved crook, a T-shaped ‘derby’ handle, or else some kind of knob or grip. This can be as elaborate or as simple as you like – topped with brass, sterling silver, ivory, bone, glass, pearl, or even solid gold – if your pocketbook can stretch that far!
The Collar
The collar is the area directly beneath the handle. This serves a mostly decorative function, and is designed to make the transition between the handle to the body of the stick more pleasing. Collars were usually brass, silver, or gold. Sometimes, they were engraved with things like dates, names, dedications or inscriptions, if, for example, the stick was a gift or presentation, or if the owner wished to identify it in the event of loss.
The Shaft
The main body of a walking stick is known as the shaft. It can be made of almost anything! Wood, bamboo, rattan, bone, glass, or even ivory!
The Ferrule
The ferrule is the spot at the very bottom of the walking stick. Today, most ferrules are made of rubber or leather, but in times past, ferrules were often made of sterling silver, brass, or steel. The point of the ferrule is to protect the base of the shaft from contact with the ground. Constant striking and scraping would damage a stick very easily, and cause the shaft to crack, split, or shatter! To stop this, the ferrule took the impact of any strikes against the ground, and prevented the stick’s base from wearing out. If or when a ferrule wore out – it was easily replaced – without damaging the stick itself.
The Stick I Found at the Market
So what about this stick? What’s the story behind that?
Well, as I said, I picked it up at the market – cheap – because the handle was badly damaged. It was cracked and worn out, and had been broken at some point. It had been replaced at one point with a new walking stick header or topper, but this was only crudely attached – and came off easily – as you can see.
That being the case – why did I buy it?
Well, I was interested in it for a number of reasons…
One – the body or shaft was of an unusual material – it may not be immediately obvious – but it’s actually made – not from wood – but from bamboo! You might notice that the stick is not fully straight – it curves and bends slightly, due to the nature of the bamboo when it was growing – which makes the stick a little quirky!
Two – the stick had a silver handle – and I liked that. I’ve always liked silver, and that attracted me to it. But lots of walking sticks have silver handles – so what? Well – this led me to the third part of the stick which I liked…
Three – the collar! This was what really interested me in the stick – not the handle, not the fact it was broken, not the bamboo – but the collar. The reason I was so interested in it was because the collar (and presumably the original handle, at one point) featured all kinds of Chinese motifs on it, which I thought was really cute! Wrapped around the top of the stick was a silver collar – roughly an inch and a half wide – and it was festooned with trees, palms, and figures dressed in old, Chinese attire, and little Oriental-style buildings in the background in hills and streams…and I thought – it’s adorable! And so topical – for fairly obvious reasons!
So after solid haggling, I got it half-price, and walked off with it, swinging it through the air for fun.
Fixing the Handle
Despite my best efforts, repairing the – by now – at least twice-previously-repaired handle – was just not going to be easy. And yet – also surprisingly easy – all at the same time.
The original handle was just a flat plate across the top of the collar – this much I could tell just from looking at the stick – there was no attachment point for anything more elaborate like a crosspiece or a chunk of ivory, etc. This had been replaced at some point by a dome-top, which was all dinged up from use – striking against things and so on. This was wobbly and loose, and when I got it home, it eventually fell off altogether when the stick was unbalanced and hit the floor!
That was when I realised just how badly the replacement repair had been made! The replacement knob was just cheap, silver hollow-ware – basically a shell of paper-thin silver which had been stuck on the top of the stick – and stuck badly, too, if one good knock was all it took to break it off! And when I mean the silver was paper-thin, I mean literally paper thin – you could rip it in half with your fingers – and it was completely hollow underneath, to boot. All in all, a completely useless repair for a part of the stick which is designed to take the full weight of the user.
Fortunately, my little mishap did not damage the reason why I bought the stick in the first place – the beautiful silver collar.
Repairing the Damage
The real challenge came with repairing the top of the stick – and this proved to be surprisingly easy to do. I found some silver of a suitable shape, size and thickness in the box of broken silver scraps which I keep aside whenever I buy antiques. In digging through it, I found a large, sterling silver cufflink with a broken toggle. I broke the toggle off with a pair of pliers, and placed it over the damaged spot on the top of the stick – it matched up perfectly!
Mixing up some epoxy, I filled the gap left by the broken handle, with enough glue to completely flood any gaps, so that we wouldn’t have another cave-in. The overflow from this gap-filling would be sufficient to seat the new handle-topper over the damaged area, and make the stick resemble, more or less, what it would’ve looked like when it was new, back in the 1800s. It was just a matter of sticking it down, and adjusting the positioning so that the rim of the new header lined up with the uppermost rim of the decorative silver collar.
Some slight misalignment was inevitable (because of the aged nature of the materials involved, and the previous damage to the handle), but I’d say it was 99% successful! I found a suitable place to stand the stick upright, and left it alone overnight to cure.
Come morning – the stick was good as new!
The diameter of the old cufflink which I used as a handle-topper is SLIGHTLY wider than the width of the collar-top at its widest point. This means that now, the handle flares out ever-so-slightly, and tapers down towards the collar – which is a really nice effect. Plus, it allows you to hang the stick easily between your fingers without having to actually grip it.
The slightly off-kilter nature of the repair matches with the battered look of the collar underneath, and doesn’t make it look like anybody was trying too hard to be perfect with a flawless repair that would be jarring with the overall appearance of the stick. Last but not least – being able to use silver – a proper, solid piece of silver – to fix the handle meant that both the collar, and the handle were now made of solid silver which was not going to break off, crack, rip off or drop off anytime soon – and the stick should be good to go for another 150-odd years!
What do we Know about this Stick?
A stick like this is certainly no modern manufactured geriatric support aid. Oh no. Definitely not.
A stick like this has age, has use, and has been around the block more than a few dozen times!
Looking closely at the stick, there are several indicators of age, and also, of country or region of origin.
On top of that there’s the silver collar. It’s festooned and decorated with all kinds of Asian themes – people in robes with Asian features, Asian-style buildings and flora, and just a whole ‘Oriental’ vibe. This overt Oriental decoration points to it being made in Asia (if the shaft material alone didn’t suggest that!) – and most likely for export to the West.
The collar has no hallmarks on it – Asian silver in those days was rarely marked – and when it was, they wouldn’t have bothered with something as insignificant and small as a walking-stick handle! On top of that, there’s all kinds of minor damage to the stick. For example – the shaft has loads of cracks in it from where the bamboo has dried out (I filled and clamped some of these with glue, to improve the structural integrity of the stick) – and the silver collar has all kinds of little dings and chips from where it’s been handled – again – not something you can easily fake.
Last but not least – is the length of the ferrule.
The ferrule is the cap at the bottom of the stick, remember? And this can be used in dating the stick.
Later sticks, those made in the late 1800s and into the 1900s, typically had shorter, less substantial ferrules, while earlier sticks from the 1700s and earlier 1800s, had longer, more substantial ferrules.
Why?
Well – it was because of the state of the roads and transport at the time! Paved roads is something we take for granted today, but for most of history, very few roads – in town, and especially in the country – were ever paved. And if they were, they were paved with cobblestones or similar, which were hard-wearing, to the point of destruction! Because of this, earlier walking sticks needed thicker, longer ferrules to guard against the scraping and chipping on cobbles or bluestone pavers, and to protect against mud, ooze, dirt and water, which could rot the base of the walking stick. To stop this from happening, sticks were made with thicker-based ferrules with longer shafts covering more of the walking stick to give extra protection.
As paving improved and roads became less hazardous, walking stick ferrules became smaller and smaller, since less of the shaft had to be protected from mud, water and grime now, and the hard wear on the tip was less likely.
Since this stick has quite a substantial ferrule (nearly two inches!) it had to be an older one, since a more modern stick would only be about half an inch, to an inch at most.
All in all – a beautiful antique, and one with a fascinating past which we can only guess at.
These four little ivory fellas (yes, they are ivory) were my latest score at the flea-market, and they are a miniature representation of the famous “Four Wise Monkeys”.
Parodied endlessly in memes, cartoons, statues, and kitschy little nicknacks like this, the wise monkeys have been around for thousands of years! But who are they? What are their origins? What are their names? Where do they come from? Today, we find out.
Hey, Hey! We’re the Monkeys!
Before we begin, just who are the “four wise monkeys”?
From left to right, we have: See no Evil (covering eyes), Hear no Evil (covering ears), Speak no Evil (covering mouth), and finally – Do no Evil (covering crotch).
The Four Wise Monkeys date back thousands and thousands of years, and are said to be the embodiment of four virtues or beliefs to lead a peaceful and harmonious life – namely, not to badmouth others, not to listen to evil thoughts or deeds, not to speak ill of others, and not to commit unlawful acts. But where exactly do these four most famous of tenets come from?
The first-ever hint of anything relating to the four monkeys (or at least, of their four sayings) dates back to the second century B.C.E, and was written out as “Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety“, giving us, not only the four sayings, but also, the original order in which they were positioned.
But who was it who spoke so eloquently, so deeply, and yet, so succinctly? A Chinese philosopher of almost mythical status – that’s who! A man, who, even two thousands years after his death, is still remembered to this day.
A man named…Kong Qiu…but whom his students called “Kong Fuzhi” – and who is known to western audiences by the Latinised name – Confucius! Yes indeed!
The statement above is taken from Confucius’s “Lun Yu“, or Book of Selected Sayings – usually translated into English as the Analects of Confucius, or Sayings of Confucius – a series of sayings or proverbs recorded by Confucius, and by Confucian scholars during, and after his lifetime.
The Origin of the Monkeys
‘Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage‘. Thus spake the English poet Richard Lovelace, in 1642.
While that may be true – so is it also true that one series of proverbs from some old Chinese guy, do not immediately translate into a cutesy little catchphrase, which may or may not be uttered by four adorable little primates, sitting in a row.
And if that be true – then where did the four monkeys come from? Who are the famous ‘Four Wise Monkeys’? What’s their origin?
The answer? Japan!
In Japanese culture, the monkeys were originally three in number, and were known as Mizaru (see no evil), Kikazaru (hear no evil), Iwazaru (speak no evil) and finally – when a fourth monkey was included – Sezaru (do no evil). It’s because of this Japanese origin that the monkeys are traditionally depicted as Japanese Macaques – a breed of monkey which is – as the name suggests – native to Japan.
While the saying (or a variation of it) likely came from China, the addition of the monkeys or macaques, is almost certainly Japanese. So – where did that come from?
It’s believed that the first depiction of the monkeys comes from the Nikko Tosho-gu shinto shrine, in the Japanese city of…Nikko…as the name suggests. The depiction was in the form of wooden carvings on a doorframe – and these carvings are believed to be the first artistic representation of this kind. The shrine dates back to 1617.
Over time, the three (sometimes four) monkeys became synonymous with the Confucian saying, and the two were melded together as being one and the same, even though they started out as two entirely separate entities – the phrase coming from China, and the monkeys from Japan.
Back to the Ivory Monkeys
OK, so much for the history. But what about these four little guys themselves, what’s their story?
In all likelihood – they’re a tourist piece. Ivory carvings made from leftover chunks of scrap ivory used to make larger items, were very popular in the 1800s and early 1900s as cheap, kitschy little souvenirs. These were sold in countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and so-on, to Western tourists coming from Australia, the Americas, Britain, or Europe. Even back then, ivory was very expensive, so every last piece was used, and what was used, was used sparingly. That’s why even something this small (the little monkey-figures are only 1.25 inches tall!) was considered worthwhile to carve – purely due to the scarcity and expense of the material.
All in all, it’s a cute little piece, and I’m very happy to add it to my collection of antique ivory.
With the closure of one of my local antiques centers imminent, a lot of the local dealers have been trying to liquidate their stock, and this involved some of them taking it to the local weekend flea-market to try and sell it off at greatly reduced prices.
That was how I got my hands on this curious little device!
I love anything to do with writing, antiques, history, and silver, and when this little doohickey showed up and scratched all those itches at once – I had to buy it!
Never seen one before? I’m not surprised. They’re not exactly common.
This long, square, silver tube is a device known as a sealing-wax dispenser! It would’ve held a long, square stick of sealing wax, which the user could extend or retract using the sliding silver toggle on the side of the tube.
It was made in England, and has full English hallmarks on the sides, dating it to London, 1904.
The dispenser measures six inches long, and is perfectly square. Inside is a sliding metal collar which is used to grip the sealing wax when it’s pressed into the tube.
But you might ask – why does such a thing exist?
It’s simple, really. Dispensers like this were intended to make the process of melting sealing-wax easier. The extender-slide on the side of the dispenser allowed the user to advance the stick of wax and melt it with a candle or cigarette lighter, while also keeping one’s fingers as far away from the flame as possible – something which would become harder and harder as the stick of wax got progressively shorter. Burning your fingers on hot sealing wax is something you’d never forget doing!…I speak from experience.
Devices for holding, melting and dispensing sealing wax used to be very common in the 1800s and early 1900s, especially with the rise of official government postal systems which made written correspondence faster and cheaper. Along with wax dispensers like these, there were also wax-jacks, and even wax-melters, which had little spirit stoves and spoons for heating, melting and pouring the liquid hot wax.
Part of the reason for such an array of devices specifically for sealing wax was because of the nature of sealing wax itself.
A sterling silver sealing-wax jack
Unlike candle-wax, which is deliberately soft and pliable, for easy melting, sealing wax – traditional sealing-wax, anyway – has an entirely different composition. Along with the wax and the colourant to make it red, black, blue or whatever other colour (red is the most traditional), sealing wax has a third ingredient: Shellac. It’s this shellac which gives the wax its distinctive hardness and makes it harder to melt. This also means that it’s harder to break, which keeps the letter or parcel more secure once sealed. And if it is broken, then it’s impossible to put back together again, which tells the recipient that the parcel or document had been opened before its delivery.
But it’s because traditional sealing wax is harder, and harder to melt, that all these devices were invented. None of them are strictly necessary (you can easily melt sealing wax without them), but they make a tricky and potentially painful task much easier, and more pleasant overall.
This is pretty neat, huh? I bought this on eBay about a month ago, as an addition to my collection of writing instruments. I’ve always wanted a drop-action pencil, ever since a friend showed me one in her own collection. One day I was browsing eBay, and found a few which were for sale, and ended up buying this slick, smooth-sided cylindrical deal from the late Edwardian era.
The pencil is in sterling silver, and is made by the famed English manufacturer, Sampson Mordan & Co.
Sampson Mordan – the man, not the company – was an 18th and 19th century English silversmith and inventor. In his youth, he was apprenticed to the equally-famous English locksmith, Joseph Bramah (of ‘Bramah locks’ fame).
Mordan didn’t become a locksmith, but he was fascinated by mechanical doohickeys, and ended up inventing, in the early 1820s – the first ever mechanical pencil! The pencil operated on a screw-type mechanism where by rotating the pencil advanced or propelled the shaft of graphite out of the tip of the silver housing, allowing a person to write with a pencil without getting graphite all over their fingers, and without having to constantly sharpen the point. Since the action of the pencil’s mechanism propelled the graphite out of it, they became known as ‘propelling pencils’.
Mordan made a HUGE name for himself as the inventor of, and chief producer of, graphite propelling pencils! Largely made in sterling silver and gold (he was a silversmith, after all), the Sampson Mordan silversmithing firm started cranking out all kinds of whimsical designs for pencils. In the 1800s, there was no such thing as a portable fountain pen, and the ballpoint was a century away – so having a compact, easy-to-operate writing instrument in your pocket that you could whip out at any moment was very useful. Mordan (and other companies) started manufacturing all kinds of novelty shapes and styles.
You could buy pencils which were shaped like rifles, golf-clubs, cricket-bats, wine-bottles, and polo-mallets! In sterling silver, or in a wide variety of gold.
One of the company’s greatest inventions came out in the late 1800s – the drop-action pencil holder!
Pencil-holders had existed before Mordan, but they were all slide-action. You grasped the barrel of the holder, and then with your other hand, you pulled the slide down the barrel, and the pencil inside slid out, held in place by the clutch-ring inside the mechanism. These were good, sorta, but the need to always have two hands free to operate them was always a bit of a faff!
The drop-action pencil-holder, by comparison, was a big improvement!
The mechanism is very simple, and works entirely on gravity (so long as you have the right pencil size!). After seating the pencil firmly in the circular clutch-ring inside the barrel, you press the release-button on the back of the holder. The whole thing works on a catch-and-release system. Pressing the button both drops the button down, and twists it slightly. This releases the clutch-ring that holds the pencil, and allows it to drop down through the barrel and out the end of the holder, exposing the pencil, and locking the ring in place.
The holder with the pencil extended
When you’re done writing, you press the release-button again, and, with another in-and-twist motion, the clutch-ring is released from the barrel opening and drops back into the base of the holder.
Hence ‘drop-action’. That said, they’re also called gravity-action pencils, because they work entirely on gravity. Since the pencil could be operated entirely by one hand, it became very popular. Such holders were compact, portable, easy to use (which made them great when you were busy and needed to take notes) and economical, because they allowed you to use up the last few centimetres of a pencil before having to throw it out when it at last, wore down to a stub!
Pencil-holders like these started losing favour among writers after the First World War. When fountain pens started coming onto the market, the need to always carry a pencil around with you diminished greatly, and eventually, pencil-holders and propelling pencils started losing ground to the modern mechanical click-action clutch-pencil used today.
The hallmarks on the silver barrel. Originally it was just “S.M.” for Sampson Mordan, but after he died in the 1840s, it was changed to “SM&Co.” for Sampson Mordan & Company. SM&Co. ended in 1941, when the factory in London was bombed by the Nazis during the Blitz
Regardless, antique silver and gold drop-action and slide-action pencil-holders are still popular, and still collected today, for their artistry, their uniqueness, but also for their practicality – unlike the antique propelling pencils which relied on specifically-sized graphite leads or rods to operate – these pencil-holders simply require another pencil!
Such holders do have a few drawbacks – ONE – their small size means that only small pencils fit into them, so you can’t have anything longer than 2-3 inches – TWO – the pencils have to fit into the clutch-ring that holds the pencil-stub in place inside the barrel. This means you have to whittle down the pencil to fit in – THREE – modern hexagonal pencils are a bit fiddly. They still work, but it’s better to use pencils which are cylindrical, instead, since they slide in and out of the holder more reliably. You can use a hexagonal pencil if you want to, however you’d have to round-off the edges on the shaft first, to prevent them from rubbing on the sides of the barrel and jamming the mechanism.
The release-button and the slide-and-lock mechanism may also need some cleaning with a bit of oil for lubrication, but once everything does work, it works very smoothly, with a solid ‘click’ at each end of the slide, to indicate that the pencil has been locked into position.
The final drawback to these pencil-holders is that for them to function – they must be in really good condition. Any big dents or dings on the sides of the barrel will render the holder completely useless, since they would jam the sliding mechanism inside, meaning that the pencil would be stuck in the open or closed position. If you’re looking to buy such a pencil for your own use – always check for dents – even a small one can incapacitate a pencil with relative ease.
If you wait around long enough, whatever you want to add to your collection will eventually appear.
And such was the case in December last year, when, after years, and years, and years of searching, I finally landed a beautiful set of cutthroat razors to add to my collection!
I’ve always loved using straight razors, ever since I bullied myself into learning how to use one when I first started shaving. Forcing myself to learn how to use one was one of the greatest little personal achievements of my life.
Ever since then, I’d always wanted to assemble a collection of antique razors. My first dream was to secure a coveted “seven day set” – a cased set of seven matching razors – considered by many to be the pinnacle of straight razor collecting. Such sets are extremely rare, and phenomenally expensive (at time of writing, average price on eBay for an antique set is about $1,000 – $2,500+AUD).
Their great rarity is mostly due to the fact that unless they’re perfect – nobody wants them. A cracked scale, a chipped blade, a broken box – anything but the smallest and most inconsequential of defects causes the desirability, and therefore value, to plummet.
I was lucky enough to land a seven-day set for peanuts, which I purchased from a friend a few years ago. It’s remained one of my most treasured possessions ever since – mostly because I could never afford the price of another one!
The next thing I wanted to add to my collection was a two-razor set – a matching pair of cutthroat razors in their original case. These aren’t as well-known as the fancier, larger, more expensive seven-day sets, but they existed as a more affordable, but still elegant, shaving solution for the man who wanted a nice set of straight razors, without the enormous expense of an entire weekly set.
To understand just how expensive a seven-day set is (and always was), in the United States in about 1900, a full, seven-day set cost, on average, $25.00. A two-razor matched set using the same materials and razors, cost just $7.00-$8.00 – 1/4 the price! This at a time when the average wage was about $15.00 a week. So while seven-day sets remained as status-symbols, the cheaper two-day sets or matched pairs could be in reach of most middle-class men, if they knew how to count their pennies.
S. Hibbert & Son – Sheffield
The company which made my set was S. Hibbert & Son, a cutlery firm based in Sheffield in the UK.
S. Hibbert was Samuel Hibbert, who ran his little cutlery firm with his son, Charles Hibbert, in what was at the time – the cutlery capital of Great Britain. Sheffield was famous for anything with a blade – knives, swords, scissors, pocketknives, cutlery knives, straight razors, surgical equipment…if it cut, stabbed, shaved, or sliced – it was made in Sheffield. Or at least, it was until the 1980s, when the cutlery industry finally collapsed, unable to compete with cheaper Asian imports.
S. Hibbert & Son was established ca. 1890, and remained a father-son venture until 1898, when Samuel Hibbert died, leaving the enterprise to his son. Charles saw his family firm survive into the 20th century, and the firm lasted until Charles’ death in April of 1938.
S. Hibbert & Son would’ve been just one of dozens of little cutlery houses operating in Sheffield at the turn of the 20th century. Such firms were plentiful and competition was fierce, especially when there were a lot of much larger, more famous companies around, like Joseph Rodgers, Southern & Richardson, and George Wostenholm & Sons, to take your business away from you!
A Breakdown of the Set
A General Overview
The set is pretty typical of the kind manufactured in the U.K. and the U.S.A., and in Germany…and in most other cutlery-producing countries around the world at the turn of the last century. The razors are a matched pair, originally both with ivory scales. One razor had its scales broken and these were replaced with matching celluloid scales when the razor was repaired at sometime in its life. It’s interesting to note that celluloid was invented in the 1850s as a replacement for ivory, so it’s interesting to see the two materials side by side.
The razors are housed inside a wooden box lined with leather on the outside, and silk and felt on the inside. The main body of the box is hinged, with a spring clasp, and has two sets of ridges on either end for holding the razors in place.
The razor blades themselves are hollow-ground, and in great condition for being, at a guess, 130 years old! They’re both punched with the maker’s marks on the shanks, and – this is a nice feature – the spines of both razors are decorated with leaves, and engraved with “1” and “2” – just to prove that they really ARE a set! It’s a cute little additional feature, and I think it makes for a nice extra bit of decoration. It’s certainly not something that you would find on all sets of this type, so it’s nice to have.
Another nice feature is that the razors have been manufactured with what are called “Spanish” points – meaning that the end of the blade is slightly concave, instead of being straight or outwards-curving. Spanish-point blades are pretty rare in modern times, and they’re usually a feature found on antique blades like this.
Faults and Flaws
The only major flaw was a cracked scale, around one of the drilled pivot-holes. Under other circumstances, this might be awful, but it’s actually pretty common with antique razors which have scales made of natural materials. So long as it’s just a surface-crack and is holding together, there’s really nothing to worry about, and if it ever does get worse, it can simply be reinforced with a drop or two of strong glue to hold it together.
The Storage Box
While you can find two matching razors anywhere if you look hard enough, one thing which is definitely much harder is finding the right box or case to put them in. Sets like these came with slim, hinged two-razor cases, similar, but smaller than, the more elaborate seven-day razor kits sold by high-end manufacturers and luxury retailers like Mappin & Webb or Joseph Rodgers.
Cracks around rivet-holes on antique straight razors – especially those with scales made from natural materials like bone or ivory – are extremely common. In most instances, they are nothing to worry about.
The box, like the razors, was in great condition, and a bit of minor cleaning, and a few touch-ups with shoe-polish and a drop or two of glue was all that was needed to render it serviceable once more. In many ways, the box is rarer than the razors. It’s really common for the boxes to be broken, torn up, or even missing parts entirely, which renders them completely unusable.
Purchasing Antique Straight Razor Sets
Buying antique straight razors is pretty…eh…straightforward.
Buying antique sets of straight razors, however, is rather more involved. Such sets usually came in pairs, such as this one, in three-razor sets (which aren’t too common), four-razor sets, which are somewhat more common, and last but not least – the coveted seven-razor sets, also called ‘seven day sets’, with one blade for each day of the week.
The more razors there are in the set, the harder the sets are to buy. Not just because they cost more, but also because there’s more things to go wrong. For such sets to be worth the expense, they have to be in perfect condition – or in as near-perfect condition as you can find them.
Check for issues like cracked or chipped blades (any razors in this condition are completely unusable – ignore them and keep searching), cracked or chipped scales (depending on the damage, this may, or may not be repairable), and any damage to the box or case itself.
Razors made of natural materials such as horn, bone, ivory, and tortoiseshell almost always have some manner of cracking around the pins and pivots, simply due to the nature of the material. If the cracking is light, then there’s really nothing to worry about. Serious cracking may be repaired with the right types of adhesives (if you have all the pieces to glue back together, of course!), but broken scales should be avoided at all costs, unless you’re intending to re-scale the entire set of razors yourself – it is possible to re-scale antique razors – I’ve done it myself – but it takes patience and skill, and is not something to be rushed into.
When looking to purchase a two, three, four, or seven-razor set – make sure that all the razors are there, and that all the razors are matching, and that they’re all in identical (or near-identical) condition. Count the razors, and check each one individually. Skimping on this means that you could end up with something that you don’t want. But if you don’t want it, chances are, nobody else does – and selling a mismatched or broken set is not going to be easy.
Last but not least, check the box or case.
Razor boxes designed to hold sets of razors were typically made of wood, and covered in leather, with interiors fitted out with slots and ridges to hold the razors, padded with felt or velvet, and with the interior lid-linings being done in silk – sometimes, but not always – with the details of the manufacturer stenciled on top in gold leaf. Some sets were not swathed with leather, and you can find cases out there with polished wooden exteriors, sometimes inlaid with brass, ivory, bone, or some other contrasting material, to add a touch of flair and decoration.
Again – check for defects. In particular – damage to the hinges, damage to the clasps or catches, damage to the lock (if there is one), and if the lock (if it exists) has a key. If it doesn’t have a key, you can usually find another to replace it, however.
As always with buying anything secondhand, the better condition something is in, the higher the price is likely to be. Hunt and shop around, compare prices, and weigh up the pros and cons. Sets like these are hard to find, so you’ll have plenty of time to do that! Last but not least – as always – decide what your level of tolerance is.
By that, I mean – how perfect does something have to be, before you’ll buy it? Does it really matter that there’s a surface-crack? Does it really matter that there’s rust? Can it be polished off? Do you have to have a set by this particular manufacturer or retailer? What are you able to fix or restore by yourself? The more you’re willing to compromise on these things, the cheaper the prices become.
Preparing the Razor Set
Once you’ve found a set that you like and can afford, the next thing to do is to prepare it for use.
First – repair anything that needs repairing. Glue any cracks that need gluing, and stick down any loose parts that might peel or fall off. Apply any necessary polish to the leather or wood that the case is made of, and make sure that everything works.
Next, turn your attention to the razors. In most instances, a fine-grit stone will do for sharpening. Once the blade is sharpened, going edge-first along the stone at least 25 laps (back-and-forth = one lap), then either move to an extra-fine stone, or start stropping at least 20 laps – again – back-and-forth = one lap. Your razors should now be ready to use. If they’re tugging or catching while shaving, then they’re not sharp enough. Repeat another 20-30 laps on the stones and another 20-30 laps across the strop to get the edge properly sharp and ready. A straight razor which is ready to shave should cut effortlessly with no force or pressure applied by the user. Your hand is only there to hold the razor and guide it, not to apply pressure.
And there you have it!
My cased pair didn’t require much tinkering before use. A bit of glue and a lot of blowing and dusting, a thorough sharpening and stropping, and it was ready for use. Honestly, these antique razors are pretty low-maintenance when you think about it, and they shave just beautifully.
