You honestly find the weirdest things in charity shops. I picked this up about a week ago, for $20:

If this looks like a giant syringe…well…you’re not far wrong!

What we have here is an old-fashioned hand-pump fire-extinguisher, from the era around 1910-1930. It’s a Pyrene-style solid brass automotive fire extinguisher, of a kind that used to hold a fire retardant chemical called carbon tetrachlorine.

These small (14in. long, 3lb-weight, 1qt capacity), hand-pumped fire-extinguishers were very common from the 1910s up to the middle of the 20th century. Unpressurised and worked by hand, they were usually mounted in steel frames and stored on (or inside) early motor-cars, to be used in the event of a car-crash. They’re almost iconic with old cars – it’s like, you couldn’t have a car made before the Second World War, and not have one of these go with it!

They work very simply. You hold the barrel in one hand, turn the handle with the other (to the left), pull out the plunger, and, taking aim (and a firm grip!) you pump the handle back and forth. This builds up pressure inside the cylinder to force out the firefighting fluid through the nozzle at the front. It’s basically a giant, brass water-pistol or super-soaker, but it takes considerably more muscle to operate it!

One good thing about this extinguisher is that it is infinitely reusable. After emptying the 1qt (approx 1 litre) capacity in the cylinder, all you need to refill the extinguisher is a screwdriver (or a large coin) and a supply of water.

As these extinguishers were not pressurised (you have to pump them to do that, remember?), it’s actually really easy to open them and refill them, as there’s no chance of them exploding if you try to do so.

These extinguishers have a screw-down filler cap at the top of the cylinder, next to the pump-handle. A large coin or a suitably sized screwdriver is all you should need to unscrew the cap, and then refill the cylinder. These old pumpers work just as well with water, so provided everything else is hunky-dory, you can use these extinguishers almost limitlessly. Once they’re empty, simply unscrew the cap, lock down the handle, fill up the cylinder, screw the cap back on, and you’re ready to go!

It was a lot of fun cleaning, polishing and testing this extinguisher. The fact that it’s 90 years old and still works is pretty damn impressive in my book. It just goes to show the quality of workmanship back then.

In my humble opinion, one of the most fun things you can do with your antiques is clean them, and bring them back to the former glory that they once knew and enjoyed when they were young. Being able to see them gleam and shine will give you a much better appreciation of their workmanship and quality, and a greater understanding of what they looked like when they were new.

In this post, I’m talking about polishing antique metalware. Specifically, polishing antique silver, and antique brass. How to do it, why to do it, and how to prolong the shine.

Polishing Metals. Do or Not Do?

This is the same bland, stupid, water-kneed excuse that I find everywhere: “Polishing antique metalware destroys its value!”

Yeah?

Fiddlesticks.

Prove it. Go on, I dare you. Prove it.

As long as I’ve been alive, I’ve been into antiques, and as long as I’ve been into antiques, I’ve heard people wailing this cry like some ancient rain-song for imaginary sky-lords. And y’know what? I just don’t buy it. Never have, never did, never will.

I never will, because of the fact that brass and silver have been polished for centuries in the past, and have, and will, be polished for centuries into the future. Part of the whole reason people BUY brass and silver is to polish them! There’s no point in owning it if you can’t make it look nice. I could show thousands of pictures of antique brassware sold by auction houses, antiques shops, online dealers, professional restorers and eBay sellers, who routinely polish all their brass and silver.

So should you polish, or not?

Honestly, it’s up to you. Just don’t buy into that spiel that polishing it will destroy it. It will not. You only destroy it if you polish it the wrong way, and how to polish silver and brass the right way is part of what this posting is about.

How Do I Polish Brass?

Right. Let’s start with the easy one: Brass.

The go-to polish for brass is BRASSO. Invented in 1905, it’s been the standard brass polish for well over 100 years now, and it still works great for most applications. If you can’t find Brasso, then any good, general-purpose metal-polishing liquid will do.

Polishing brass can be done in a variety of ways. Either with rags, with superfine steel wool, or even just by hand. Which method you use will be determined by what the item is, and how easily it can be polished.

Polishing with a Rag

Polishing your brass with a rag or cloth or paper-towels is the accepted way of doing most polishing. This is good if the piece is large and requires a lot of extensive polishing and you need to cover a big surface-area. Just make sure that you fold the rag or paper-towels regularly, and use a fresh rag or paper-towel when it comes to buffing and polishing, right at the very end.

Polishing by Hand

This method is much messier than polishing with a rag, but in some ways, it’s a lot more fun!

To do this, you will need:

• Brasso.
• A clean towel.
• A bucket of hot, soapy water.
• Something to polish.
• Clean hands.

I generally do this with smaller objects that you can hold in your hands – things like candlesticks, snuffers, brass trays…anything small and made of brass. Just pour a small amount of the liquid polish onto the brass and simply rub it thoroughly all over with your hands!

You will get REALLY messy doing this, and your hands will turn black, but the advantage is that you can rub and polish and clean literally EVERY part of the item, and reach into places which rags and tissues can’t access. This means that the overall finished result will be much better.

Once you’re done polishing really well, and your hands, and the item in question – are black from all the grime you’ve scrubbed off of it, then dump the item (and your hands) into the bucket of hot soapy water and wash the item, and your hands, thoroughly. Then pull out the gleaming piece of polished brass! Finally, dry yourself, and the item, with a towel and give it one last polish. Done!

Polishing with Steel Wool

Polishing brass with steel wool should only be done as a last resort. This is what you use to polish brass which is REALLY tarnished. You found something that’s been in a shed for 50 years. You dug it out of the ground. It’s been up in the attic since before grandpa died. That sort of thing. Only use this method if extensive and exhaustive scrubbing with the first two methods failed to yield any results.

Extremely tarnished brass will not always yield to Brasso alone. It might work, or it might not. Chances are, you could polish the item all day using Brasso, and get nowhere. That’s because of the thick layer of grime that’s dried and encrusted itself onto the metal, which the Brasso just isn’t strong enough to scrape off. That’s where the steel wool comes in.

Now, before you run off and get the steel wool pad that you have in the kitchen, I should clarify that you’ll be using a very specific type of steel wool for this sort of polishing. It’s 0000-grade, superfine steel wool. You can generally find it in any good hardware supplies store. It’s specifically designed for polishing and antiques restoration, so – if used properly – it shouldn’t damage anything.

Start by filling a small dish with liquid metal polish. Rip off a clump of polishing wool and get it into a manageable-sized lump. Dip the steel wool into the liquid polish, and then start scrubbing away at the brass.

If your brass item is really, really, REALLY heavily tarnished, this will take a long time, and quite a bit of elbow-grease. The combination of Brasso and steel wool is, in most cases, more than enough to cut through all this grime, but it requires persistence. Above all, resist the urge to use a coarser grade of steel wool. You’re trying to scrape off the filth – not scratch the brass!

Lacquer Removal

One important thing to keep in mind with antique brass is that some people put lacquer on it. Lacquer is a clear-coat protective fluid that dries on top of the brass, like paint, and provides a layer of protection on the brass against oxidation and tarnishing. It’s important to scrape off any lacquer from your brass before you polish it, because otherwise all you’re doing is polishing lacquer, which isn’t what you want to do.

You can buy specific lacquer-stripping chemicals, or you can use the ultra-fine steel wool to do it instead. You’ll know if there’s lacquer on the brass if you see any sort of cloudy or hazy parts on the metal (that’s where the lacquer is starting to dry and crust up). Just scrape it off like tarnish and then polish the exposed brass underneath.

Once you’re done with the polishing, you can either re-lacquer the brass, or you can do what I do, which is give the brass one final buff-over and polish with…olive oil.

Olive oil will give the brass a slight matte-finish, but it will also protect the brass from excessive tarnish. It’s easier to remove, and easier to put on, helps to clean the brass, and won’t harm it at all. Rub it on thoroughly with a paper-towel and then enjoy the shine!

How Do I Polish Silver?

Polishing silver is a much more delicate proposition than polishing brass, and as such, much more care should be taken in its cleaning. Silver is a much softer metal than brass, and as such it dents and scratches much more easily. Because of this, harsh chemical cleaning agents and abrasives of any kind should be avoided when trying to polish and clean your silverware.

When it comes to cleaning silver, you should use the softest and least aggressive polishing compound or liquid possible. Many people use, and swear by ‘silver foam’. It generally comes manufactured by two brands: Haggerty’s, and Goddard’s.

Silver foam is a bit like liquid-soap for silver. It’s a soft paste that comes in little plastic jars. Scoop a bit out and rub it onto the silver. Just like with Brasso, you can decide to do this with a rag, or with your bare hands, depending on what the piece is.

This is the back of a pocketwatch from 1925. It hadn’t been polished in decades, as you can see. And it’s got an ugly stripe and yellow gunk on it, from where the price-sticker had been on it for years and years and years.

After rubbing the paste on and polishing off all the tarnish, then you can simply wash the paste off with warm water. It starts to lather up a bit when you do this (hence the name ‘silver foam’), but basically it just washes off just like any other regular soap. Then simply dry the object with a soft towel.

Of course, silver foam is a very gentle polishing agent. Don’t expect it to remove anything especially harsh. If you have something on your silverware that you just cannot get off (like glue residue or staining from a price-tag or something like that), then you can use SILVO (the silver brother of BRASSO), but this should be a last resort.

Polishing the watch, first with silver-foam, and then with a couple of drops of Silvo has removed the gunk, grime and tarnish from the watch and restored it to its original glittering shine. Not bad for something that’s nearly 100 years old!

Silvo is meant to be used for polishing steel, chrome, pewter, silver and other white metals, but it is quite tough stuff. The smell alone when you open the bottle is proof of that! Using the smallest amount of Silvo possible (like, a few drops), is enough to clean off most hard, stubborn stains or marks on your silverware. But don’t use this to polish the entire piece. It’s quite abrasive as a polish, and it will rub away fine details like engravings, hallmarks and other decorative features.

General Polishing Tips

When polishing metal – gold, silver, brass, bronze…whatever…there are certain things you should always keep in mind.

The first thing is to use the right polishes and the right techniques. Always start with the most gentle option first, and then progress to the more aggressive ones.

Make sure that whatever you’re polishing is bare metal, and not plate. Polishing silver plate or nickel plate or chrome plate, or brass plate will just wear it off and expose the metal underneath, which can sometimes look really unsightly. Look for scuff-marks and wear-spots, to see whether or not something has been plated or not. In most cases, real silver will come with hallmarks, although they’re often well-hidden, so scope the piece out with a strong magnifying glass to be sure.

Apart from that, general polishing advice is to polish as infrequently as possible. Polish once, polish well, and then leave it alone! You shouldn’t need to polish something again for several months or even years, if you’ve done it properly. Excessive polishing damages fine details and rubs away engravings, marks and patterns. That’s the last thing you want to do!

As with any proud antiques collector, I take a lot of pleasure in showing off my latest finds online. On Facebook, in collectors’ forums and of course, here on my blog.

Often I get people asking me stuff like: “Where did you find that?”, “How did you spot it?”, and “How do you know what to look for?”

A lot of my success is down to dogged determination and careful examination, but there are certain things which I always believe that a good antiques-hunter should always have on his or her person whenever they go out bargain-hunting. Here are my tools that I think every person should bring with them when they go antiquing, to improve their chances of finding a bargain…

1. A flashlight or torch – Antiques shops are not always the best-lit of places. The most amazing treasures are usually hiding in plain sight and without adequate lighting, it’s impossible to tell what you’re looking at. In flea-markets, where cases are often jammed with trinkets, a small, but powerful pocket flashlight is often useful for carefully inspecting each object, before asking the shopkeeper, or the stallholder, to unlock or open the cabinet for you. It’s easier for you, and it saves the other guy’s time.
2. A Magnifying Glass – Every good antiques collector should have a magnifying glass…I actually have several of these. Everything from those massive, solid, cut-glass monsters with brass frames, that remind you of Sherlock Holmes, right down to tiny pocket-magnifiers which I keep in my waistcoat pocket. A powerful magnifying glass is essential for checking for flaws, cracks, chips, maker’s marks, hallmarks, serial numbers and other small details in items like watches, porcelain, silverware and other manufactured goods.
3. A Measuring Tape! – A small, pocket-sized retractable measuring tape is great for antiquing. Ideally, it should be one of those cheap ones with the soft plastic measuring-tapes inside them, not the hard, steel ones that you find at hardware stores – the last thing you need is the hard edges of your tape scratching up a table! A small measuring tape that measures out to about 150cm (around 60in) will be sufficient for most purposes. Nothing sucks more than not knowing if that vase or pot or spare part, or table, is going to fit into the space that you had envisioned for it in your home! So make sure you take measurements!
4. Notepad and Pen – For taking notes, jotting down measurements, serial-numbers, the names of items…What, you seriously think you’re gonna remember all that crap? Huh… Get real!
5. Camera – For taking pictures, duh! Useful for remembering things and cataloging where and when you saw something of interest. In antiques shops its unlikely to be a problem, but some people at flea-markets get a bit antsy when you snap their stuff (I’m yet to figure out why), so unless you know the person well, always ask before snapping.
6. Your Mobile Phone – For taking pictures, if you don’t have a camera, and for accessing the internet (if you can), for doing on-the-fly checks about whatever it is you’re looking at, to find out more information before you buy it.
7. Cash! – Where possible, pay in cash! Sometimes, you have to (such as in flea-markets or antiques fairs where access to EFTPOS isn’t always possible), and sometimes it’s just easier. People are more likely to accept a discount if you’re able to cough it up there and then. Cash is King. And the king (usually) gets what it wants.That said, if possible, keep your cash to small denominations. Fives, tens and twenties. Don’t bring out the big guns unless you’re actually paying for something expensive. Trying to chip down something from $30 to $20 and then paying with a $50 bill looks kinda iffy, yeah?
8. Pocket Reference-Book – If you can find one (and if something like this is useful), then a pocket reference-book (such as for silver hallmarks) should be something you should keep on you at all times when antiquing. If nothing else, it’ll save the batteries on your phone from wearing out as you try to look up those marks online!
9. A Magnet – For testing if something is brass, gold, silver, plated, or just really really shiny steel.
10. Manners and a Good Sense of Humor – You want a bargain? Smile. You want more bargains? Be funny. I’ve managed to knock prices off all kinds of things just by being sweet, charming and cute. If a stallholder or antiques dealer likes you enough, they may be induced to drop the price…even moreso, if you’re a regular customer!

And there we have it. Some of those are obvious, some, perhaps not. But either way, they should all help to increase your odds in one way or another.

If you want to know more about antiquing and get more tips and tricks, then keep an eye out for the upcoming MAY issue of The Australia Times – Antiques, where I’ll be going into this stuff in MUCH more detail! The magazine is free, online, and easily accessed at:

http://www.theaustraliatimes.com/magazine/antiques/

Some things are just too cool to pass up. Like this doovelackey…

I picked this honey up online about a week ago, and the moment I saw it, I knew I had to add it to my collection. I just can’t resist antique brassware. Such variety, such beauty…I had to have it!

Mortars and pestles made of bronze (and later, brass) were very common in the period from the later-Renaissance period, up to the 1800s. They were relatively easy to make, extremely tough, long-lasting, and could be made into attractive shapes.

This particular mortar and pestle was made in the Netherlands in the early 1700s and while it’s only a medium-sized one, I just had to have it the moment I saw it online. I ummed-and-aahed over it for months, but when nobody else stepped forward, I finally plucked up the courage and decided to buy it. It took a week before it arrived, and it was the most anxious and frustrating week of my life. But, it’s here!

The base of the mortar, which was probably spun on a lathe, has two sets of concentric rings for decoration, and a ‘5’ for size. You might notice that the small hole drilled into the base of the mortar is slightly off-center (no, that’s not the angle of the dangle, that’s how it really looks).

Brass mortars and pestles were made by either being cast (usually sand-cast) or by being spun on a lathe, and the brazier using a chisel or tool to carve away the excess metal, leaving us with beautifully finished brasswork like this.

Here’s a few more shots of my latest toy:

Both pieces are in wonderful condition, considering their ages. No dents or cracks or damage anywhere.

The interior of the mortar is slightly concave, and full of dents and dings from the thousands of times that the pestle has been smashed into it or ground against it, in the course of hundreds of years of use.

I’ve often wondered why these mortars have those round, ball or knob-handles on the sides. For a period, they seemed to have been very common.

Someone I spoke to suggested that they might serve a more practical function than just a way to pick up the mortar, and that perhaps the handles held the mortar in a cradle or stand.

I’d never heard of such a thing, but it did seem to make sense. After searching online, I did find one photographic reference to wooden mortar and pestle stands for sets like the one shown here. I was so intrigued by it, I’m thinking of making my own.

With any luck, my next post in this blog will be about making that stand, and showing it off online!

I showed this to about half a dozen people on the way home after buying it, not a single person could tell me what the hell it was before I told them!

But it’s neat, yeah?

What we got here is a “Velvetone Bell Company” streetcar or horse-carriage bell, from the late 1800s. Bells like this were found on streetcars, cablecars, trams, horse-carriages, and even some early motor-cars, and were used by the driver to warn people ahead of approaching traffic.

Bells like this featured a removable plunger, usually connected to the bell by a short chain (as you can see in the picture), which could be pressed down into the bell using the driver’s foot, which activated the spring-tensioned striker-merchanism, which rang the bell…very loudly! Twice!

This bell hadn’t been used in 50 or more years, and so as a result, the striker mechanism inside the bell was extremely stiff. After a few experimental ding-dings, the whole thing seized up! So I pulled it apart…

…then cleaned, and lubricated the striker mechanism…

…to get it ringing again. Although this looks extremely crude, it’s actually a very effective mechanism. The chunk of brass on the right with the screw in it is the hammer that hits the side of the bell. The rest of it is all part of the spring-mechanism that jerks it back and forth to ring at each push-pull motion of the plunger.

The last thing I did was to re-reddify the red background on the plaque at the top of the bell…

…and put in some modern screws. I’ll replace these with brass ones one day, if I can find any.