Category Archives: 18th Century

by

A Fantasy Fulfilled – Acquiring Quizzers!

If you’re like me, and have had to grow up with appalling eyesight, then you’ll know that you can never have too many magnifying glasses. Ever since the day I started highschool, I’ve always wanted a pocket magnifying glass. Something which I could carry around with me and use whenever I needed to read small text, or magnify something which I couldn’t see clearly.

These days, there’s all kinds of magnifiers available. They come with lights, folding lenses and protective cases, they’re downloadable apps on your phone which you can customise to your needs, they have sensors and zoom-functions and all the rest of it.

And almost all of them are made of some cheap plastic stuff, usually in garish colours and god-awful patterns, and with weird, whacky designs that make them look more like toys than anything else. And this is the main reason why I have never bought one.

Instead, for many years, I held out, hoping to find something a little nicer, a little more refined and elegant, something useful that didn’t look like just another mass-produced vision-aid. Deciding to take a page from the book of history, I started hunting for a quizzing-glass.

What’s a Quizzing Glass?

“A what?”, I hear you say.

A quizzing-glass, I repeat, a quizzing-glass.

Alright…and what is a ‘quizzing-glass’?

I am so glad you asked, because this post is going to be all about them!

My sterling silver quizzing-glass, complete with silver albert-chain.

First, a bit of background – struggling with a heady mix of myopia and astigmatism (the eyes’ inability to both focus, and stabilise an image) – my eyesight has always been awful. Don’t get me wrong, I can see well enough to do just about anything – with enough time, patience and swearing, I can thread a needle if I really have to – but because of my conflicting vision-conditions, I’ve always suffered from terrible nearsightedness – hence the need for a decent magnifying glass.

To this end, I’d spent a long time – at least 10 years – searching for a decent quizzing-glass to use as a magnifier. Unfortunately, quizzing-glasses are both rare, and expensive. Despite visiting countless fairs, shops, and dealers, I’d never been able to find one, or afford one, or buy one which I liked enough to spend money on – when a glass costs upwards of $600 retail, you want it to be the best possible…and even then, I didn’t have $600 to blow, being a poor university student at the time.

Anyway, enough backstory – what is a quizzing-glass??

Quizzing-glasses, or ‘quizzers’ as they’re also called, are small, pocket-sized handheld magnifying glasses with single lenses. The lenses are about the size of a large coin, and the frames and rims are typically made from gold, silver, or Pinchbeck-Brass (more about that later). Quizzers typically came with a handle or ring under the frame to hold in the hand or fingers, and the same handle or frame also served as an anchoring point for a chain, ribbon or cord, that affixed to the user’s clothing or went around the neck, to prevent damage or loss during the course of a day’s usage.

Quizzing-glasses were very common in the 1700s and 1800s. At a time when eyesight conditions were typically corrected with crude lenses and eyepieces such as Nurnberg spectacles and handheld lorgnettes, high society was looking for something more elegant and refined.

‘Nurnberg’ spectacle-frames, named after the town in Germany where they were invented – the most common type of spectacles in the 1700s. They would eventually evolve into the French ‘Pince-Nez’.

Quizzing-glasses were a lot more than just eyepieces to help you read stuff, in the 1700s, they were also flashy fashion-accessories! It was very common for a man – or even a woman – of means, to sport a quizzer as a fashion-accessory, even if they didn’t even need one! Peering at something through a quizzer became an upperclass affectation – one might, or might not, be genuinely interested in whatever they were looking at – but if they did look at it, then it was usually through the lens of a quizzer! In the later 19th century and even into the 20th century, this action was usually replaced by the more well-known monocle (yes, there is a difference, I’ll talk about that later, too!).

For gentlemen in the late 1700s and early 1800s, stereotypical accessories were the walking-stick and tricorne hat. For ladies, a parasol and fan were the most common accessories – but both sexes carried, and used quizzing-glasses.

Why Use a Quizzing-Glass?

I suspect the main reason why they were so popular is partially because they were cheaper. Spectacles – even relatively simple ones, needed so much work done to them – two identical lenses, two rims, screws, springs, a bridge, nosepads…and if you wanted them, then also temple-arms – and if you did want them, then that meant adding hinges, more screws, finials, and maybe even a protective case to go with it…it’s getting expensive now, isn’t it?

My Pinchbeck brass quizzer, from the early 1800s.

On the other hand, if you weren’t the type who desperately needed or used spectacles every day, and instead only did a casual amount of reading or close-work, then a quizzer, with its simpler construction, fewer parts, and smaller size, was generally considered to be a better, and cheaper, selection!

What’s the Difference Between a Quizzer and a Monocle?

Ever since I started carrying and using my quizzers (which is on a daily basis, thanks to my aforementioned eye-condition), I get people who come up to me and say ‘Oh wow! A monocle, I didn’t know anybody used those anymore…‘.

I grin, and smile and nod…and do my best not to correct their misinformation – because – it’s not a monocle!

Alright, so what’s the difference, then?

A quizzing-glass and a monocle both have a single lens fitted into a frame or rim. Both lenses serve as magnifiers, or otherwise help to correct vision.

That is where the similarities END.

A quizzing-glass is a handheld device – the frame is held by the ring or handle up to the eye, like a magnifying glass, and is attached to the user’s clothing by a chain, cord or strap of some variety. When not in use, it sits in the pocket of the user’s coat or jacket or waistcoat, or hangs on a cord or ribbon around the neck, usually resting at chest-level.

On top of that, a quizzing-glass lens can be almost any shape – round, oval, hexagonal, octagonal…even square! Since it doesn’t have to fit into the user’s eye-socket, the shape or even the size of the lens and the frame around it really doesn’t matter. By comparison, a monocle’s lens is always a perfect circle – it has to be, in order to fit into the user’s eye-socket, which is how a monocle is worn.

Monocles fit into the user’s eye-socket through friction. You pop it in, and the friction of your eyebrow resting and pressing against the top of the monocle holds it against your cheekbone, keeping the monocle in place. In cheaper monocles, which are just plain glass, the edge of the lens is smoothed off to make it more comfortable to wear.

On more expensive monocles, which come with frames and rims, seating the monocle in the eye-socket is done with the aid of two protruding shelves or ledges affixed to the edge of the frame, called ‘galleries’. A monocle has two galleries – one for the top of your eye-socket, and one for the bottom. You raise your eyebrow, pop in your monocle and then relax your facial muscles. The tension of your eye-socket pressing or resting against the monocle-galleries should be enough – if the monocle is sized and fitted correctly – to hold it in place.

The End of the Quizzing Glass

While monocles and quizzing-glasses were, for a time, equally popular, quizzing glasses died out in the 1800s, and by the turn of the 20th century, were a complete anachronism. Their demise is due chiefly to the fact that they were a fashion accessory, rather than being an actual vision-correction device, such as a monocle is designed to be. As fashions changed to be less frivolous and flamboyant to more straitlaced and tidy, people with eyesight problems chose to use lorgnettes or even modern-style temple-glasses to correct their eyesight, rather than fiddling around with a quizzing-glass. Monocles and modern spectacles had the advantage that while worn, they could leave both hands free to work.

By comparison to the demise of the quizzing-glass, the monocle remains in use today. Although it’s largely seen as a quaint holdover from the Edwardian era, the stereotypical eyepiece of well-bred, public-school-educated upper-class men, you can still buy – and even have prescribed for you – monocles which are brand-new. Most wearers are people who have poor vision in just one eye, and for whom a pair of spectacles isn’t strictly necessary.

I want to Buy a Quizzing Glass!

Quizzing glasses can be hard to find. After all, they haven’t been manufactured in the best part of nearly 200 years! They’re typically made of silver, gold, or pinchbeck (a type of really shiny brass). They were most common from the early 1700s up to the mid-1800s (when various types of spectacles and monocles replaced them in popularity). So, if you want to buy one, what do you need to look out for?

First thing’s first – you need to check the lens. The lens should be clean, clear and without cracks, scratches or chips. Test it for magnification power and see if you’re comfortable with the strength provided. Unless you have the facilities, contacts or the money to pay for someone to grind you a new magnifying lens, discard any quizzers with overly-scratched/chipped lenses.

Next thing to check is the condition of the frame or rim. In general, these should be alright, but you can find some (as I certainly have, in the past) which were bent or damaged. This can cause the lens to sit improperly, or even fall out, so rivets, screws and the edges of frames should all be checked for integrity. While you’re at it, examine any holding-loops or handles for issues like dents, cracks, warping or bending, and loose fitting parts. Just keep in mind that some holding-loops are meant to pivot and swing around, so don’t worry if they swivel back and forth.

How Much do Quizzing Glasses Cost?

Due to their rarity, quizzers are fairly expensive. Although some historical reenactment companies do manufacture modern quizzers in antique style, to purchase an actual Georgian-era quizzer will set you back quite a bit, anywhere from $100 – $300 for a silver one in variable condition (which is not too bad a price to pay) up to $400 – $600+ for one in solid gold. And that’s provided you don’t have to pay for the lens to be replaced, or for the frame to be repaired.

Quizzers were typically attached to the body of the wearer using a silk ribbon or lanyard. Since I wear mine in my upper waistcoat-pockets, I use simple pocketwatch chains (which is an option, if you choose to wear them that way). To stop them from swinging around and damaging the glass, keep your quizzer tucked out of the way (under your shirt or in your jacket pocket) when not using it.

 
by

1783 “El Cazador” Shipwreck Piece of Eight

While chatting to an acquaintance-stallholder at the local flea-market, I was approached by her friend who wanted to know if I was interested in buying a coin. I’d met this fellow a couple of times before and we’d always had fascinating conversations about antiques, silverware and coins, and so I agreed to have a look at whatever it was he was willing to show me. He took a badly cracked and chipped coin-case out of a plastic bag he had with him, and presented me with a very, very, VERY worn and battered Spanish Piece of Eight encapsulated therein.

To say that the coin was in bad condition was putting it mildly. The surface was so pitted and scratched and the edges were so worn and chipped that it looked like someone had tried to sandblast it or something. And in a way, that’s exactly what had happened!

The damaged coin-case, bearing serial #3498007-073, said that the coin was from the “El Cazador” shipwreck of 1784. At once, I was interested – I’ve never owned any real shipwrecked treasure before! We haggled back and forth and finally settled on a price that I was comfortable with, and I added another piece of eight to my collection…which now numbers five pieces! (Only three more to go! Haha!!).

I decided to remove the coin from the case and add it to my collection, but I also decided to keep the case (damaged as it is) as proof of provenance, should I ever need it in the future.

So What Is This Coin and What Makes it Special?

The coin in question is a 1783 Spanish Dollar, also called an 8 Reales or Peso de Ocho coin. To most people, it goes by a far more common name, however.

The Piece of Eight.

What makes this coin stand out from other pieces of eight is that it’s a shipwreck coin. That’s why it’s in such terrible condition – it’d spent two hundred years at the bottom of the ocean! And that sort of treatment has caused the coin to take on a particular patina and toning which is unique to shipwreck coinage, and that’s what makes it more desirable and more interesting than other coins.

Even without the case, would it still be identifiable as shipwreck treasure?

Oh yeah, sure! Yes, coins like these are faked, but there are ways of telling genuine ones. Mostly, what you’re looking for are genuine signs of aging. Natural wear, grime and toning/patina which have built up over the coin over the course of hundreds of years. This is something that you cannot replicate on a fake coin (or at least, not easily). About the only way you can is to make a copy of an original shipwreck coin by making a casting of it. But that won’t work because the accumulated encrustations on the real coin would show up as metal on the fake one – which obviously wouldn’t happen if the coin had really spent the better part of two or three centuries underwater.

The blackened areas on the coin are the result of salt corrosion and discolouration from 200 years spent at the bottom of the Mexican Gulf. Even if you tried to polish this, you’d never be able to move those spots entirely, so I haven’t bothered to try.

Determining whether a coin is real or fake is a matter of close examination, the balance of probabilities, and understanding what you’re looking at, how it was made, and how metal ages over time. It’s something gained through experience and careful study.

What is “El Cazador” and what happened to it?

El Cazador (“The Hunter” in Spanish) was an 18th century warship (specifically, a brig of war), which was commissioned by the reigning king of Spain (at the time, Charles III), to deliver several tons of silver coinage from mints based in Spanish Mexico, to the capital city of Spanish Louisiana (New Orleans) in 1784. At the time, the United States was still limited to the eastern coastline and much of the Americna interior was still divided up between the French and the Spanish.

Paper currency and promissory notes being used in Spanish North America at the time were heavily prone to counterfeiting and forgery. This led to a lack of confidence in such currency, as a result, it meant that soldiers and sailors living in New Orleans at the time refused to accept it as payment since there was no guarantee that the notes were actually worth anything!

It was to prevent a complete financial meltdown that El Cazador was chartered to make this vital mission, and to restore the colony’s faith in Spanish currency, by replacing flimsy paper notes, not worth anything, with cold, hard cash that could be trusted!

The bust of King Charles III of Spain and the year “1783”. The heavily pitted and worn-down surface is the result of centuries of sand grinding against the metal as it was washed over it over and over again by the action of waves and currents. The coin was essentially sandblasted for two hundred years, which also wore down the edges of the coin, which is why they look so irregular.

To achieve this goal, the El Cazador sailed from Spain to the Mexican port city of Veracruz, where it was loaded with the silver which it would then transport to Louisiana, departing from Spain on the 20th of October, 1783, and arriving in Mexico three months later. Here, the ship was loaded with the required cargo os silver. All told, El Cazador was loaded with about 450,000 coins – Spanish Reales of various denominations. Roughly 400,000 pieces of eight, and 50,000 other Reale coins of small change – 4 Reale and 2 Real coins, etc., an amount totaling upwards of 37,500lbs (or 18.75 tons) of silver!

This coin was one of those 450,000 which vanished into the depths of history…

The Last Voyage of the El Cazador

Once loaded, the El Cazador departed Veracruz on the 11th of January, 1784, setting a course North-Northeast, across the Gulf of Mexico towards New Orleans. At the wheel was Gabriel de Campos y Pineda, a captain selected personally by the King of Spain himself, to command this vital mission.

Exactly what happened to the El Cazador will never be known. Spanish treasure ships lost to hurricanes were extremely common occurrences in those days (read my post about the history of the piece of eight to see just how many fleets were lost in storms back in the 1600s and 1700s!) and it’s likely that the ship succumbed to such a storm.

“The Shipwreck that Changed the World”

The impact of the loss of the El Cazador was great. When it failed to arrive in New Orleans, divers and ships immediately went out into the Gulf of Mexico to determine what had happened to it. No trace of the ship could be found, and the loss of so much money became a disaster for the Spanish and their new world colonies. In June, 1784, the ship and its priceless cargo were officially listed as being lost at sea. While further attempts to ship silver to Louisiana were attmpted, the situation there, already so precarious due to the local distrust of the currency, finally collapsed altogether.

A few years later, the French revolution, and war with Napoleonic France only made things even worse, and eventually, Spain ceded its Louisiana colony to the French in 1800. This was the same territory which was sold to the United States in 1803, in the famous “Louisiana Purchase”. So basically, the United States of the early 1800s doubled in size because of a shipwreck.

What Happened to the El Cazador?

So, in 1784, a ship went down in the Mexican Gulf and was never heard from again. Right?

Well, sort of. The El Cazador was certainly not heard from for the better part of 200 years. This changed in 1993, when some guys out in the Gulf decided to go fishing. On a boat ironically called the Mistake, they sailed through the Gulf and tossed their nets overboard to see what they could find. When the nets snagged on something, they winched them up to find that they had caught large clumps of rock!

Initially, the men were frustrated and disappointed. That is, until one of the men broke one of the clumps open and took a closer look at it. He suddenly realised that it wasn’t a rock after all, but coins! Hundreds and hundreds of silver coins, fused together by two hundred years of corrosion and age!

Clumps of coins from the El Cazador, fused together by the sea after 200 years under water.

The Mistake’s captain, Jerry Murphy, suddenly got really excited, and rang up his lawyer as soon as he could, in order to obtain salvage rights on what he was sure, had to be a sunken ship. Further research identified the wreck as being El Cazador, and soon, huge clumps of silver coins were being winched and hoisted up from the deep, along with loads of other artifacts, including various cannons, and also the ship’s bell.

The coins were eventually cleaned and carefully pried apart. They were eventually sold off, either as single coins with certificates of authenticity, or as cased pieces in plastic frames with the name of the wreck printed on labels and stuck on them. Given that the El Cazador had 400,000 pieces of eight on board, getting your hands on one isn’t too difficult – just make sure that if you’re going to attribute your coin to the El Cazador wreck, that you get as much documentation and proof of it as you can. When it comes to antiques and history – provenance is power!

So Now What Happens?

Well, the coin is now part of my collection! Although the case is damaged, the frame with the authentication sticker is still intact, and I’ve kept it aside as proof of provenance. I’ve researched coin cases (or ‘slabs’ as they’re called in collecting circles) and removing coins from their slabs doesn’t deteriorate or damage the coin’s value or desirability in any way (provided that you keep evidence of the coin’s history, should it have any, and you didn’t damage the coin when it came out of the slab). So excited to have my first real piece of Spanish sunken treasure!

“I want a Shipwrecked Piece of Eight!…Where do I get one!?”

Believe it or not, you can just look them up online. There are a number of websites which act as official agents for various discovered shipwrecks. Simply find the right website and you’ll actually be able to buy genuine shipwreck silver coming from specific wrecks. Each coin comes with some form of authentication, either a framed certificate, or a slabbed coin in a plastic case.

Personally, I think a loose coin and a framed certificate is better, because slabbing a coin and encasing it in plastic can cause all kinds of problems later on, should you want to rehouse or re-display the coin in some other manner. Various coin-dealers I’d spoken to were all of the opinion that slabbing really isn’t the best thing to do with coins, since it can make them less desirable (what’s the point of buying a coin if you can’t pick it up, basically…).

More Information about the El Cazador and its Treasure?

Sure, here’s a few handy sites about the wreck, and its treasure, and how you might be able to buy a genuine piece of shipwreck silver or gold. These websites relate to the wreck of the El Cazador, but also to another famous Spanish treasure wreck: the galleon Atocha. If you’re interested in shipwreck treasure, then definitely check that one out!

http://artifactexchange.com/index.php/shipwrecks/el-cazador

http://www.elcazador.com/

"El Cazador" Shipwreck

 
by

Buried Treasure: Four Spanish Pieces of Eight!

Digging through albums, boxes and cases of old, crusted-up, grimy, forgotten coins from defunct entities from all around the world can often be a thankless and pointless task. You find all kinds of coins which are not particularly rare, or particularly interesting, or particularly valuable. You find all kinds of coins which are grubby, sticky, grimy, tarnished, chipped, dented and otherwise distinctly unappealing in one way or another.

But occasionally – just occasionally – you do find gems!

Finding the Coin of Destiny

This post is inspired by some coins which I found in the past month or so, while digging around at the local market.

It was on a cold, blustery morning, when I trudged through my local flea-market looking for…stuff. I stopped at the table of a regular stallholder and started burrowing through the cases and trays of coins on offer. Admittedly I don’t do this as a matter of habit – I rarely look for coins at flea-markets, and rarely bother looking through huge swathes of the things, since nine times out of ten, the coins I’m interested in are nowhere to be found, except for specialist coin-collecting stores.

But as I rummaged, I found something, buried under all the offerings of British shillings, Dutch 2 Guilder coins, Indian Rupees, grimy copper pennies and American half-dollars. Inside some simple cardboard coin-holders, crudely stapled together and with near-illegible biro-markings on the border, were three silver coins.

LARGE silver coins!

Out of sheer curiosity, I picked them up and felt them in my hand. They were heavy. Substantial pieces of silver. I examined them closely and spotted a coat of arms between two pillars with banners coiled around them, beneath a crown. Around the edges were Latin inscriptions. One of them read:

“HISPAN. ET. IND. REX. M. 8R. I. I.”

With a stupid little grin on my face, I flipped the little packet over and on the other side was:

“FERDIN. VII. DEI GRATIA” and four numbers: “1820”.

Oh boy.

Oh Boy!

OH BOY!!

A (nearly) 200-year-old silver coin. And not just any silver coin. I looked back at the other side. Sure enough, clear for everyone to see:

“8R”

As in ‘Eight Reales’ (pronounced ‘Ree-ahlz‘)

Out of all that crud and junk, I’d just picked up one of the most famous coins in the world.

A Spanish Dollar. Better known as a Piece of Eight. Fought, squabbled, traded and passed from hand to hand between pirates, traders, merchants, sailors, kings, queens, soldiers and colonials since the end of the 15th century, it is a coin of almost legendary history. A coin, rare variations of which, can fetch literally thousands of dollars – for a piece of silver no bigger than the dial of a man’s wristwatch.

I picked up another one.

“1790”

Ooooh boy!!

I picked up the third one!

“1779”

Hot dawg, we got us a winner!

I flipped the coins back and forth to check the prices and their conditions. When I saw the prices, my heart skipped a beat. They were going cheap! Real cheap!

The three Pieces of Eight (top, bottom and left) which have joined my antique coin collection, together with their brother on the right.

That was when all the alarm-bells started going off in my head. This is either the bargain of a lifetime…or it’s a very clever forgery – and yes, these coins ARE faked. I know that for a fact because I’ve bought (but managed to return) a fake, once in the past (that was a close call!).

Now, as an aside, you might ask, what does it matter? If it’s a nice one, and you can’t afford a real one, then, why not buy a fake? It doesn’t really matter, right?

Yeah, but the problem is – a fake may not matter to you, now – but it’ll matter in 50 years when your grandsons take it to the Antiques Roadshow and their five minutes of fame on international television becomes an international embarrassment when they find out that grandpa got duped with a fake coin. Nobody wants fakes. And if you just coughed up $200 for one, and can’t get it back…you’re screwed!

Anyway. Back to the coins!

Very politely, I asked to examine them. I carefully teased back the staples using a precision instrument – better known as a fingernail – and slipped them out. I popped the three coins from their covers – the three pieces of eight…and then asked to borrow the dealer’s jewelry scale.

If you’re going to be any kind of antiques collector, or dealer – I highly recommend getting one of these little pocket scales. They don’t cost much and their highly precise measurements are specifically for measuring precious metals. I turned the scale on and popped the coins on, one at a time.

A piece of eight should weigh NO MORE than 27.07g. NO LESS than 26g, unless it’s REALLY, REALLY, REALLY worn out.

Coin #1: 26g. Exactly.
Coin #2: 26.52g.
Coin #3: 26.69g.

Alright! Looks like we’re in the clear. It’s a cheap and dirty field-test, but it’s generally quite trustworthy. It’s based on the fact that specific metals have specific densities. A specific size of silver coin will always weigh a specific weight, as opposed to one made of say, nickel-silver, or steel, or some other cheap, imitation-metal like that. A nickel-silver or pewter coin won’t weigh the same amount for the same size of metal.

At first, the weight of the first coin (at only 26g) worried me. But then, that coin was the oldest, and by far the most worn-out. I figured the weight of 26g was acceptable given its condition.

The backs of the coins, showing their ages. 1779, 1790, 1802, and 1820.

Satisfied that the coins were indeed the real deal, next came the haggling. This is where visiting the same flea-market every week for 20 years, so often that people recognise you on sight, comes in handy. When you’re a friendly, regular, weekly face to the long-term dealers, they know who you are, they know what you buy, they know what you pay, they know that eventually, you will buy something from them sooner or later. This helps grease the gears of generosity.

In the end, I toddled off with the coins in my pocket. They were already dirt-cheap and I got them even better than that! Very excited! This now brings my collection (it can now be called a collection, right?) up to the giddy heights of FOUR coins! Oh my, oh my…

The History of the Piece of Eight

So, enough about buying the coins. What about the coins themselves? What exactly makes a Piece of Eight so special? Why is it called a Piece of Eight? What is it about this coin that has made it so famous for so long? Where did it come from? Where did it go? How long did it last?

The official Spanish name for the Piece of Eight was the Reale De a Ocho – Eight Reales. The Real (without the second ‘e’) was the Spanish currency from the 1300s all the way up to the middle of the 19th century! That said, the Piece of Eight or ‘Spanish Dollar’ as it’s also called, doesn’t date back that far. It shows up on the scene about 100-200 years later.

To make the Real easier to count and manage, when Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Spain in the 1490s, returning it to the realms of Christendom, they also reorganised Spain’s pre-existing monetary system. The basis for the new system was to be the 8 Reales coin.

Together, the Escudo (introduced later, in the mid-1500s) and the Real (one gold, one silver) formed the bedrock of this new currency system of the steadily-growing Kingdom (later, Empire) of Spain. They were minted in denominations of 1/2 Real, 1 Real, 2, Reales, 4 Reales, 8 Reales (the ‘Piece of Eight’), 1/2 Escudo (which was equal to one Piece of Eight), 1 Escudo (equal to two Pieces of Eight), 2 Escudo, 4 Escudo, and 8 Escudo (equal to 16 Pieces of Eight!). The 8 Escudo coin (the largest denomination coin manufactured by Spain) was also called a Doubloon.

Of all these coins, the Doubloon and the Piece of Eight became the most famous, the Doubloon for its large size and high gold content, the Piece of Eight for its near universal usage, large size, and impact on world history, which I’ll get to, further down…

Where did Pieces of Eight Come From?

Pieces of Eight were largely manufactured in the Spanish New World colonies such as Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia. The vast majority of the silver used to make Pieces of Eight was mined out of Potosi, a mountain in modern-day Bolivia which was almost completely solid silver. Thousands of tons of silver was mined out of Potosi and this silver was refined, melted and then stamped and shaped into Pieces of Eight (and their smaller denomination coins) to be shipped back to Spain in their millions.

As European powers started colonising North and South America in the 1500s and 1600s, a readily-available system of currency needed to be adopted so that transactions and trade could take place.

The 8 Reales coin, already available in abundance in South America, Mexico, and various parts of North America, became the ideal coin (and by extension, currency) for colonials to trade with. Some countries (such as Britain) actively tried to dissuade the colonists from using British (or other European-power) currency, and so foreign coins (ie: the Piece of Eight) were used instead. The Piece of Eight was almost universally accepted as currency because it was a known quantity. People knew that it was a large coin of proven silver content, and this made it ideal for trade.

Why is the Piece of Eight so Famous?

The Piece of Eight is famous for a number of reasons. The first reason is that the Piece of Eight is widely considered to be the world’s first global or international currency. From the date of its first minting until it finally went out of circulation (Ca. 1865), the Piece of Eight was accepted as currency almost all over the world. And I mean ALL over the world. Canada, America, Mexico, the Caribbean, Britain, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and China ALL used the Piece of Eight as a form of currency in one way or another at some point during the coin’s official run as legal tender.

Its large size, heavy weight, high silver content and easily-recognisable design, made the Piece of Eight easily accepted around the world, when no other currency was available. Even in China, where the locals probably couldn’t read (let alone understand) the Latin inscriptions around the coin’s edge, they knew silver when they saw it, and they accepted it as payment for their goods such as porcelain, tea and silk. To ensure that the coin was the real deal, Chinese merchants would test the coin by hammering a seal into the coin to check its silver content. These seals were (and still are) called ‘chops’, and the dents they left in the coins are called ‘chop-marks’. It’s not uncommon to find Pieces of Eight used in the China trade festooned with chop-marks as the coins moved from merchant-to-merchant, each one striking the coin to ensure that it was solid silver.

Pirates and Pieces of Eight

The second reason why Pieces of Eight are so famous is because of their indelible link to the Golden Age of Piracy, the Age of Colonisation, the Age of Exploration, the Age of Sail, and the Enlightenment movements of the 1600s, 1700s and early 1800s.

As I said, Pieces of Eight were largely manufactured in South America and Mexico. To get Pieces of Eight back to Spain, the Spanish government organised a system of treasure-convoys. Basically, what happened was that every few months (say, two or three times a year), a fleet of ships was sent from Spain to the Caribbean and South America. This fleet of ships carried food, water, essential supplies, trade-goods and other necessities and materials required by the colonists living in Spanish holdings in and around the Caribbean Sea.

Once the ships had been offloaded of their cargo, their holds were reloaded with thousands, millions of gold and silver coins – usually escudos, doubloons, Pieces of Eight, and their various smaller denominations – along with tons of gold and silver in the form of bars (ingots).

Thus-loaded, the ships, in convoy, would sail for home.

It was these treasure-bearing Spanish convoys that were a prime target for nominally enemy nations, such as the Netherlands, France, and especially – protestant England.

So, did pirates and privateers really attack Spanish treasure galleons or even entire fleets? Were fleets lost in storms and hurricanes during the voyage back to Spain?

Oh, you bet.

Spanish treasure fleets were lost to storms or hurricanes with surprising frequency. Fleets sank in 1622, 1708, 1715, 1733 and 1750, to name but a few! One ship which sank in the 1622 storm was the Nuestra Señora de Atocha (“Our Lady of Atocha”). The Atocha is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most valuable shipwreck ever found – probably because it was loaded with 40 tons of gold and silver!

OK, but what about ships lost to epic sea-battles? Did those ever happen?

They certainly did. On the 8th of June, 1708, the Spanish treasure galleon the San Jose was blasted to kingdom come by English cannons during a battle during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). Eager to stop the treasure-loaded fleet from reaching Spain (and therefore funding the enemy) English warships under the command of Admiral Sir Charles Wager, attacked the Spanish off the coast of Colombia.

The San Jose (center-left) being blown to pieces by British cannonfire during the War of the Spanish Succession.

Three Spanish ships were destroyed in the engagement. One of them was the San Jose. It sank with hundreds of of gold and silver coins on board, as well as several pounds of jewels (mostly emeralds). It was discovered a few years ago, and as of 2017, salvage-operations are underway to retrieve the wreck’s vast fortune (calculated at being $17,000,000,000 – or $17 BILLION in American dollars, as of 2018).

So, that covers treasure lost in shipwrecks and to enemy action on the high seas, but were Pieces of Eight ever handled and used by actual, real-life pirates?

Absolutely.

Despite their ravenous, bloodthirsty image from popular culture such as television, films and books, pirates from the Golden Age of Piracy (roughly the 1620-1800) were surprisingly democratic and socially progressive creatures for ruthless, armed thugs. Surviving documents and books, written during the Golden Age of Piracy (largely during the late 1600s and early 1700s) state that pirates would vote and debate on almost anything and everything. To maintain order and efficiency and comfort at sea, pirate ships had lists of rules, and codes of conduct, which all pirates were expected to obey – and no, unlike in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, they weren’t ‘more like guidelines’ – they were strictly adhered to!

One such regulation was the payment of health insurance! Pirates were entitled to a monetary payout (‘recompense’ as it says in the original documents) if they were injured in the course of a battle, but survived the engagement. Insurance levels varied, and depended on where you were injured, with different payouts stipulated for the loss of hands, arms, legs, fingers, or eyes.

So, how were these payments made? In Pieces of Eight, of course! And these could be very, very, VERY substantial payments. Loss of an eye was equal to 100 Pieces of Eight. Loss of an arm or leg could be up to 500 or 600 Pieces of Eight!

The Piece of Eight: The First Global Currency

Spain had colonies in Mexico, North America, South America, and the Far East. Spanish trade dominated the world from the late 1400s right up to the end of the 18th century. Because of this, the Piece of Eight was a coin that was used all over the world. Every continent permanently settled by mankind up to the start of the 19th century was touched by this coin in one way or another. It was the only coin which saw near-universal acceptance, being used as currency in Canada, America, Australia, Britain, much of South America and the Caribbean, Mexico, China, Africa and across Europe.

In America, the Piece of Eight was legal tender until 1857, when the first, truly American-made coins had been made in sufficient-enough quantities to replace it. In Australia, the Piece of Eight was legal tender until 1825. in China, the Piece of Eight was used as money up until roughly the time of the Opium Wars (1840s and 50s). In 1864, the Reale was finally retired as the Spanish unit of currency, to be replaced by the Peseta – the currency of Spain from 1869 until the country adopted the Euro, in 2001.

In China, merchants refused to trade with Europeans in anything except silver coinage. In this respect, the Piece of Eight was ideal as a system of currency. Its large size and high silver content made it highly attractive to the Chinese. But of course, the Chinese, not trusting these strange, white devils, would always test any silver coins given to them, before they accepted them as payment.

The 1779 dollar. Observe the areas circled in blue. The symbols hammered into the silver are chop marks made by Chinese merchants.

This was done by hammering a punch into the face of the coin to test its silver content, and also to mark that the coin had been independently assayed by a Chinese merchants to attest its authenticity. A coin with loads of chop-marks hammered all over it was taken to be a coin of proven silver-content, and was therefore acceptable for use as payment.

In Australia, the Piece of Eight was the nation’s first official currency after the island was colonised in the 1780s. Early in Australia’s history, rum, tobacco and other foodstuffs were used as barter, but when this became unsustainable, the governor of the day decided that foreign coins of known value would be appropriate for use as currency within the colony and a list of foreign coins was compiled. Only the coins on the list could be used as currency within Australia. These coins became known as Proclamation Coins, since they were the coins mentioned specifically in the proclamation from Government House.

The problem with these coins is that they could still be used OUTSIDE of Australia. This meant that loads of these coins were leaving the island on merchant ships which sailed to Australia to do trade with the colony. They sold their stuff to the colonists, who paid them in the valuable coinage, and then the sailors sailed off, leaving even fewer coins in the settlement.

To stop this, the next governor down the line decided that ONE type of coin would be used: The Spanish Silver Dollar or the Piece of Eight. He bought a whole heap of these coins (thousands of them) from Britain and had them shipped to Australia.

To make the coins worthless outside of Australia, he had them punched out. The larger ‘donut’ on the outside was called the “Holey Dollar” and the punched out nugget in the center became known as the ‘Dump’. The Holey Dollar was worth 5/- (five shillings), and the dump was worth 15d (fifteen pence).

In 1825, this practice was discontinued when a law was passed stipulating that ONLY British currency would be used within Australia. As a result, all the Holey Dollars and Dumps were swept up and tossed into the melter’s pot. Today, a Piece of Eight can be easily purchased online, although prices can vary wildly. By comparison, a Holey Dollar and Dump are worth THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS each, because so few of them survive today.

How Was a Piece of Eight Made?

The earliest Pieces of Eight were simply made by hacking off chunks of silver from cast bars (ingots) of silver, shaving them down until they were the prerequisite weight, and then punching the pre-carved designs (engraved into metal die-punches) into the coins, using a punch (like a stamp) and a hammer to apply the force. In this way, coins were quite literally ‘hand-struck’, and handmade, one after the other, piecemeal. Once one side of the coin had been struck, it was simply flipped over and the opposing die-punch was struck to the other side.

Coins such as these are called ‘cob’ coins and their crude methods of manufacture meant that they were often open to forgery. To have any faith in the money, even if it was solid gold or silver, merchants would routinely weigh coins to ensure that the cob in question was of the correct weight, since it wasn’t unknown for unscrupulous dealers to hack off the corners of silver coins and pass them off as whole ones, and then use the scavenged silver for something else (this practice was called ‘clipping’ the coin, since you clipped a bit off the edge each time).

The milled edges of the Pieces of Eight, an anti-clipping measure. The worn rim on the 1779 coin (left) explains why it’s a whole gram lighter than what a perfect coin would weigh.

By the 1700s, more advanced methods of coin-manufacture, similar to how coins are made today, started being devised, and anti-tampering measures such as decorated, milled edges started being introduced. With a milled or decorated edge to the coin, it was immediately obvious if it had been tampered with, thereby reducing the risk of someone wanting to ‘clip’ the coin for its silver-content.

Unless the Piece of Eight you own is EXTREMELY old (pre-1700s), it’s likely to be a milled coin rather than a cob coin.

The Anatomy of a Piece of Eight

By the 1700s, the general design of the Piece of Eight started becoming more or less standardised, with a few minor changes as the years progressed.

A typical Piece of Eight from the 1700s up through to the 1820s and 30s consisted of, on one side, the name of the reigning Spanish monarch of the day, the year of minting, and the Latin phrase “Dei Gratia” (“God’s Grace”, or “By the Grace of God”).

the other side of the coin had a crown at the top, and beneath that, a coat of arms. These consisted of castles and lion rampants set into the quarters, The Fleur de Lys of the House of Bourbon, in the middle, and beneath, a pomegranate. To either side are pillars, signifying the Pillars of Hercules, which corresponded to the Rock of Gibraltar (northern pillar) and the northwestern-most point of the African continent. Since antiquity, the Pillars of Hercules symbolised the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.

For centuries, the Pillars of Hercules, guarding the entrance to the mighty Atlantic Ocean, were seen as the gateway to the unknown. What existed beyond them was pure conjecture. The Latin phrase “Non Plus Ultra” (“Nothing Further Beyond“) became widely associated with the pillars.

The Spanish coat of arms and the Pillars of Hercules on the coin.

This all changed in the 1490s when Christopher Columbus discovered the New World! Suddenly, there WAS something beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and with daring and tenacity, that something could be reached, colonised, explored, and exploited!

To this end, the old motto of “Non Plus Ultra” was changed to “Plus Ultra” (“Further Beyond“). It became the national motto of the Kingdom of Spain, and was added in swirling scrolls around the Pillars of Hercules on the Piece of Eight, to indicate that the wealth, power and influence of the Spanish started in Spain, and spread “Plus Ultra” – “Further Beyond” than the eyes of man could possibly see!

You will need an extremely powerful magnifying glass (and a Piece of Eight of the right vintage in good condition) but the microscopic letters are visible on the scrolls around the pillars.

Finally, around the coat of arms and the Pillars of Hercules are the words:

“HISPAN. ET. IND. REX.” (“King of Spain and the Indies“), the mint-marks (in my case, an LM for Lima, and an M for Mexico City), the monetary designation of ‘8R‘ (8 Reales), and finally, the initials of the assay master overseeing production of the coins.

The Influence of the Piece of Eight

Not for nothing is the Piece of Eight, arguably the most famous coin in the world. The Chinese Yuan, the American Dollar, the Mexican Peso and countless other currencies around the world, all owe SOMETHING to the Piece of Eight. For example, when the Piece of Eight was finally pulled from circulation in the ‘States in 1857, its official replacement was the American Silver Dollar. This was a coin which was 38mm across, weighed 27g, and which was 90% solid silver.

Do those measurements sound familiar? They should – they’re the EXACT same ones used by the Piece of Eight, on which the silver dollar was based!

An American Silver Dollar (left, from 1891) next to the stack of Pieces of Eight (right). Observe the size. Not only that, they’re almost exactly the same thickness and weight. They’re also almost the same silver content.

The American system of quarters, nickels and dimes are also directly descended from the Piece of Eight. The idea of the Half Dollar and Quarter Dollar come from the original practice of quite literally – chopping up a Piece of Eight into halves, and quarters – and sometimes – even eighths! You could literally have an eighth of a Piece of Eight! These cut up silver coins were part of the basis of loose change today.

If you want more proof that the Piece of Eight is indeed, the most famous and influential coin in the world, then have you ever considered the dollar-sign? You know. This thing: “$”.

Look closely at a Piece of Eight. Here…

Notice the scrolls wrapped around the pillars of Hercules? See anything familiar there? The scrolls around the pillars was what led to the symbol for the dollar – the S with the two lines through it. Such is the influence of the Piece of Eight that MILLIONS of people use that symbol every day without even realising where it comes from.

Fake Reales – How to Tell Fake Coins from Real Coins

I openly admit to being a novice and casual coin-collector. I’ve only been doing this for two or three years at most. I like collecting coins with some sort of historical significance, either personal, or global. It was for this reason that I was attracted to seeking out Spanish Reale coins. The problem is, reales are (or can be) very expensive. Very, very, VERY expensive. Prices of $2,000-$3,000+, isn’t unheard of, for exceptionally rare or old examples. That’s why when I saw the price for this coin (which was far, far, FAR less than $2,000), I immediately became both interested, and wary of it.

So, if something seems too good to be true, and you want to make sure it IS true, how do you safeguard yourself against buying a dud coin?

There are a few quick-and-dirty ways.

Magnet Test

The first and easiest way to figure out if a coin is fake is to do a magnet-test. A steel coin purporting to be silver will snap to a magnet like flies to a cowpat. By comparison, a silver coin will not (or will not as readily) stick to a magnet. Some might, due to impurities in the metal, but it should be a slow or weak adherence.

A pair of rare-earth magnets (which are EXTREMELY POWERFUL) will do the trick. Easily purchased at your local car-supplies, or boating/fishing stores. BE SURE TO STORE THESE MAGNETS CAREFULLY – do NOT put them near electronics, mechanical watches, computers, phones or anything else like that – the extremely powerful magnetic field will damage them. Store them somewhere far away from other items, ideally in a padded cardboard or wooden box.

However, super-powerful magnets alone are not enough. You can get coins which are made of cheap, silver-like alloys (nickel-silver, for example) which will react the same way as real coins. So, what else can you do?

Weight and See!

The next test is to weigh the coin. A small (but highly-accurate) digital pocket jeweler’s scale costs very little. A few tens of dollars at your local jewelry-supply shop (where I bought mine) or online. Take it with you if you go bargain-hunting or antiquing regularly. Of course, for this to work – you need to know what the coin is SUPPOSED to weigh, in the first place. Perhaps keep a note of the coins you’re after, and their correct weights (easily found online from numismatic websites) with the scale for when you take it out with you. Then, simply weigh the coin. A coin which is SIGNIFICANTLY over-or-underweight is likely to be a fake. A coin which is exactly the correct weight, or slightly under (within one gram) is likely to be real.

For example, a Spanish Piece of Eight weighs 27.07g. That’s if you can find a PERFECT one. Very few Spanish reales are perfect. That being the case, expect SOME loss in weight. Instead of 27.07, it might be 27.00. Or 26.3, or 26.7, or 26.5, or 26.25. Unless the coin is missing a LOT of metal, it shouldn’t ever dip down into the 25g-range. If it does, approach with caution.

Unless you are absolutely certain that you can spot a fake – stay well away from any suspect coins like that. A fake Piece of Eight will weigh significantly less than 27, or even 26 grams. They can drop all the way down to 22, 25, 23 grams, etc. Any coin registering that sort of weight is a HUGE red-flag. Put it down, and walk away slowly.

Wear and Tear

Last but not least, check the physical condition of a coin. Any coin that is too perfect or too imperfect may be suspect. The exceptions to this are if the coin is really, really old, or if it’s shipwreck-salvage (yes, you can buy shipwreck coins, and it’s perfectly legal to do so). A genuine antique coin will have genuine antique wear and flaws and damage on it. Rubbed lettering, faded imagery, dents, cracks, dings – in some cases, they’ll even have chunks taken out of them. Some will have their corners or edges completely rubbed-off from decades and centuries of handling. Details like shields, facial-features like eyes, noses, mouths, hair, clothing, lettering, etc, should all show even wear. Milling or edge-decorations should show consistency.

While antique coins were handmade (or made with crude machinery) they nonetheless had to be perfect – or as near-perfect as the assayer and mint could make them. That being the case, any obvious flaws (like half the date falling off the bottom of the coin, when you can clearly see the edge-milling being intact) should serve as red flags for fake coins.

On the Edge

Another way to check whether a coin is fake or not, is to check the edging around the coin’s rim. A Piece of Eight has very distinctive circle-and-square patterning around its edge. This edging – properly called milling – was invented centuries ago as an anti-fraud device. By decorating the edges of coins, it became possible to see whether the coin had been defaced or cut up or been the victim of ‘clipping’ (where minute fragments of the coin’s precious silver had been scraped or filed off).

Fake Spanish dollars will sometimes (but not always) have markedly fake milling around the sides. If you ever see a Spanish dollar with modern corrugated milling on it – run away! Because they never did them like that! Ever!

Fine Details

Another way to figure out if a coin is fake is to compare it against a real coin. Obviously this isn’t always possible to do, but there are certain things you can look out for. Check things like character-spacing and sizing in letters, evenness of stamping, the crispness or clarity of the imagery used on the coin, and the fineness of the edges and rims.

Fake coins won’t bother with things like creases in robes, curls or strands of hair, detail to eyes and mouths on faces, and things like that. Some do, but most fraudsters are just banking on the fact that someone will be too excited by the prospect of getting a rare or famous coin, and will buy the coin too fast to examine it properly, allowing the forger to make a quick buck on a scam. Take as much time as you need to look at suspect coins.

The End of an Era

The Piece of Eight, the coin that ruled the world for three and a half CENTURIES finally came to an end in the 1860s, when in 1869, the Spanish Peseta replaced it as Spain’s official currency. By this point in time the Piece of Eight was already being phased out in other countries around the world anyway, and within a few years, its use had ended completely.

The coin was taken out of circulation and a piece of silver that once ruled the world and had circumnavigated it countless times and had visited every continent permanently settled by man, was suddenly made obsolete, to survive now only in antiques shops, private collections and in the fantasy of books, films and pirate lore…

 
by

Whistlin’ Dixey: Two-Draw Georgian-era Guillotine Pocket Telescope

Yarr-harr!! Avast, landlubbers! Belay thy squabblin’ and take heed:

This telescope was one of about half a dozen things I bought at the local flea-market this weekend. And ain’t she gorgeous!?

She is a Georgian, or very-early-Victorian two-draw pocket guillotine spyglass or telescope, with brass fittings and a wooden barrel. ‘Two-draw’ comes from the two, brass draw-tubes that comprise the telescope’s focusing mechanism. The ‘guillotine’ refers to the built-in lens-shutter that protects the glass from grit, rain and damage. It is a beautiful example of an early telescope, made in London by one of the best manufacturers of the age.

How do you KNOW it’s Georgian?

Good question, 99!

I know it’s Georgian, because of the way it’s constructed.

Most telescopes these days are solid metal. This one has a wooden barrel – a feature common to antique telescopes made during the 1700s and 1800s. By the later 1800s, telescope barrels were made more, and more out of brass (which was more expensive), rather than wood (which was plentiful, and cheap!), than wood. By the last decades of the 1800s, leading into the early 1900s, wooden barrels had almost entirely disappeared, replaced by brass barrels (sometimes clad in leather, to provide grip).

Secondly, I know that it is exceptionally old because of the built-in, sliding lens-shutters.

This French naval telescope, from the 1840s or 50s, has a removable, spun brass lens-cap, common to telescopes made from the second half of the 1800s, to the modern day…

Most telescopes you buy today – and most antique telescopes – have removable, round lens-caps. Some of the older ones also have swing-open, kidney-shaped lens-shutters over the eyepieces, to keep out dust. But only the really old telescopes have what some people have called ‘guillotine’ shutters. That means that the lens-shutters are built into the body of the telescope itself, and when the telescope is in operation, they simply slide up, out of the way, and then snap back down again (like a guillotine, hence the name), when the telescope isn’t being used.

I don’t know why that particular aspect of telescope design died out…I think it’s a pretty cool feature, actually. But that’s how it is. At least it’s a useful dating tool.

…however, this other telescope has a different type of sliding, ‘guillotine’-style lens shutter, which is only found on much older models.

The third reason I know that it’s Georgian is because of what’s engraved on the draw-tubes, the maker’s mark of “DIXEY / LONDON”, a company that was established in Georgian times, and which is still going today (more about them in a minute).

The fourth reason I give for saying that this telescope is Georgian is how the lenses are fitted into the telescope.

Most lenses these days are either screwed in, with washers to hold them tight, or are glued in with clear adhesive (as was the case, starting from the Victorian era). However this telescope’s lenses are neither. They’re turned in.

By that, I mean that someone fitted the lenses into the telescope, an then secured them in place by spinning a brass rim directly against the glass. This would’ve been an easier construction technique than having to cut threads and grooves to make the lenses drop and pop and screw in with washers, but it also meant that if the lenses BREAK…you can’t replace them. A bit of a problem…

Fortunately, the lenses on this telescope are in great condition, so I’m not worrying!

So how do I know it’s Georgian? That’s it! How it’s made, what it’s made from, and what features were included in the telescope during construction.

These are the sorts of things you need to learn, if you’re going to date antiques, even if it’s only a general ballpark number.

‘C.W. Dixey & Son – LONDON’

Telescopes were extremely common during the Georgian and Victorian eras. At a time when all international travel was done by sailing ship, or steam-powered ocean-liner, it was vital for members of the crew to own telescopes of quality. And at any rate, passengers who frequented the seas with any regularity, would likely have one as well, if only for sightseeing. Telescopes, although larger and bulkier, had a much further range than most binoculars of the day, and had much greater magnification.

The first draw-tube, with the maker’s mark of C.W. Dixey & Son.

Before the days of accurate maritime navigation (in the late 1700s), sailors found their way by ‘line-of-sight’ navigation – telescopes were used to sight landmarks such as buildings, cliffs, land-formations and rocky outcrops. Telescopes were therefore vital for safe navigation, when sailors ‘hugged the coasts’ of continents, to prevent their ships from being wrecked on reefs and rocks.

Engraved on this telescope are the words “DIXEY” and “LONDON”.

‘Dixey’ refers to C.W. Dixey & Son, an 18th century family firm of opticians, established in London in 1777. Although they don’t make telescopes anymore, the company still exists, as a manufacturer of eyeglasses. Among others, C.W. Dixey & Son made optical gear for the Qianlong Emperor of China (a telescope), Winston Churchill (a pair of spectacles), famous author Ian Fleming, Napoleon Bonaparte, and several British monarchs. It’s rather thrilling to own a telescope made by such a famous manufacturer!

Restoring the Telescope

The telescope required very little work to make it function properly, which is surprising, given its age. A good general polishing, blowing out dust, cleaning the lenses, and wiping down the draw-tubes with oil to remove interior grime, was all that was required to fix it and make it function like new! The sight down the barrel is clean and crisp, and the lens-shutters open and close smoothly and firmly, and the draw-tubes open and close without problems.

Cleaning off all the grime on the telescope of course wasn’t really possible – it would’ve required far more disassembly than I wanted to endeavour, but the end-result is pleasing enough. Now, it works, and it looks nice, and that’s really all you could hope for!

The finished telescope with its brass all polished and clean!

 
by

All Aboard the S.S. Pap Boat! 222-year-old Georgian Silver Feeding Vessel…

“All Aboard the…what?”

Pap boat.

This thing:

In use largely in the late 1600s, 1700s and early 1800s, pap boats were small, shallow, boat-shaped feeding vessels used to deliver pap to the mouths of babes and sucklings. They died out in the mid-1800s when feeding-bottles (similar to the kind we have today) were invented. Sterling silver christening sets including a porringer (small bowl), spoon, fork, knife and sometimes a silver mug, as well, which became very popular in the Victorian era, also saw the decline of the pap boat. As a result, in the 21st century, they can be pretty rare pieces to get your hands on.

“What the hell is ‘pap’?”

In its oldest form, ‘pap’ means ‘breast’, ‘teat’ or ‘nipple’. By the 1700s, ‘pap’ also came to refer to a sort of sweet, liquidy gruel or porridge – basically baby-food – which was fed to infants and toddlers.

Recipes for pap typically included milk, flour, butter, sugar, and sometimes softened bread or breadcrumbs (for added bulk and nomminess!). Pap was thought to be soothing, tasty, and especially for babies – especially easy to digest. if babies were ill, medicine might be mixed into the pap formula so that the tot could take its dosage with minimal fuss.

Dating the Pap Boat

Dating this small piece of very old silverware was a real challenge. The actual date letter on the row of punched-out hallmarks was long gone. But there was still enough of the sovereign’s head duty mark to identify it as George III.

Duty marks on English silver came in starting in 1784. They died out in 1890. Marks changed over the reigns of the monarchs, changing marks every time the old ones either wore out as the monarch’s reign lengthened, or when the king died and another one replaced him. The duty mark on this piece of silver was identified as 1795. That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s when the boat was made and marked, that’s just when the new duty-stamp was introduced. Without anything else to go on, however, I’m dating this piece at 1795.

 
by

Bringing out the Dead: The Life of a Body-Snatcher

After I found a book on this subject at one of the local junk-shops, I thought that an article on the crime of body-snatching would make a fascinating little bit of morbid reading. It’s one of those old-fashioned crimes that we often read about in history books, like witchcraft or poisoning wells or being transported for stealing a loaf of bread. Body-snatching is one of those crimes and like all crimes, it makes people ask the question ‘Why?’ Why was it done? Why was it necessary? Why would you want to do it and who were the people who that committed crimes like this?

What Is Body-Snatching?

Body-snatching is the crime of disinterring a corpse. Or in layman’s speech…digging up dead bodies. Ain’t that cuddly? In the form that most people would understand it, body-snatching is the crime of digging up dead bodies which would then be sold. To medical colleges, teaching-hospitals, anatomical colleges, doctors and surgeons, to be precise. It was a crime prevelant in many countries in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the United Kingdom, especially, it was at epidemic proportions before the 1830s. If you’ve ever seen those old Georgian-era churchyards and cemetaries and seen the fenced-in burial-plots or those huge, wrough-iron fences with the adorable, razor-sharp spikes on top that are built around the perimeter of graveyards, those aren’t just there for morbid decoration. They were designed as a deterrent for body-snatchers, who would raid cemeteries at night to steal freshly-buried corpses!

For those of you who have heard of the saying of ‘doing the graveyard shift’, the crime of body-snatching was what made this shift so necessary. City watchmen and constables would perform the graveyard shift in churchyards and cemeteries at night to stop people digging up corpses! You can imagine how rife this must’ve been if the phrase ‘the graveyard shift’ has survived over two hundred years to be still used in the 21st Century!

Why would people want to Snatch Bodies?

As I’ve explained, ‘body-snatching’ is the crime of digging up freshly-buried corpses, and that this crime was particularly rife during the Georgian and Regency Era.

But why?

You have to admit that willingly wanting to break into a churchyard at night to dig up a dead guy is not something most people would want to do, hardened criminal or not. So why was this crime so popular?

Legislation is designed to prevent crime and aid humanity, but sometimes, and sometimes more often than not, it, aids crime and prevents humanity. In this case, legislation prevented humanity from learning all that it could about…humanity. And it aided criminals who were willing to help humanity better understand itself.

In the 18th century, medical science was advancing at a slow, if steady rate. Slowly, people were casting off the old-fashioned medical beliefs that had been taught and passed down for centuries since ancient times. Medical students were not interested in humors or blood-letting or spells and potions. They were interested in finding out how the human body was composed and how it worked. To aid curious and hungry growing medical minds, anatomical colleges and great medical teaching hospitals were created in the 17th and 18th and early 19th centuries. Doctors and surgeons or medical students flooded to these institutions so that they might learn more about how the human body worked and how they could better treat and cure it.

But for people to understand how the human body worked they first needed bodies.

An old operating or dissection theatre. If you’ve ever wondered why they were called ‘operating THEATRES’, it’s because these were the chambers where medical students would go to watch their lecturers put on a show about the human body and they were set out, quite literally, like theatres. Students would stand on the tiers above and around the central stage to observe the doctor or surgeon dissecting or operating on the body below (which would be on an operating or dissection table). The wooden rails were there so that students could lean on them and be more comfortable

The problem was, in 18th century England, bodies were notoriously hard to come by. The only bodies that could be given to such medical instruction schools for the purposes of studying anatomy were those of murderers, suiciders or the destitute who had died by execution, their own hand or through neglect and poor health. All well and good, but how many people are hanged each year? Or commit suicide? Or are found dead on the streets? Probably a fair few, but that was few enough. These were the ONLY way that such medical institutions could get their hands on bodies. Even if someone DIED and had stated in their WILL that they desired their remains to be left for the purposes of science and learning, this was against the law. There simply were not enough ‘state-provided’ corpses to be sent to medical colleges for professors and doctors to teach their students about the intricacies of the human body. They needed more bodies. And they didn’t really ask questions about where the bodies came from…if you get my drift.

Enter: The Ressurectionist. Also called ressurection-men or ‘body-snatchers’, these men would break into churchyards and cemeteries under cover of darkness to dig up corpses that had been recently buried, and send them off to doctors and surgeons who could use them to teach their students about the human body. There was big business in body-snatching. Of course, doctors have always been wealthy people, and they could…and would…pay generously for a really nice ‘specimen’. This led to the rise of the body-snatcher in the 18th century.

How was Body-Snatching Done?

It was just as well that stealing bodies paid really well (or well enough, at least), because stealing them in the first place was pretty damn hard. To begin with, you needed to find a graveyard. Having found it, you had to get over the numerous obstacles that protected it. Gates were locked at night, bars couldn’t be squeezed through and it could be tricky climbing over the sharp, wrought-iron railings. Coupled with that, there were often watchmen or police-constables on patrol, doing “the graveyard shift”. There were even watch-towers in larger cemeteries!


The tower in the middle of this cemetery (round, white building) was built for watchmen to stand guard in, and keep an eye out for body-snatchers at night

If you got past all these obstacles and barricades, you still had to dig up the body. And there was a lot of digging. To be ‘six feet under’ isn’t just a euphamism for death, it was also quite literally how deep a coffin was buried under ground! At a rough calculation, you would have to dig out about 72 cubic feet of soil with nothing but a shovel, by lamplight, risking discovery with each shovelful of earth. And once you found the coffin, you had to get it open. Coffins were often nailed shut and would have to be forced open with a crowbar. Having gotten the coffin open, you had to get the body out (a dead weight of say, 200lbs, less or more, depending on the individual) and then you’d have to close the coffin and then bury the empty coffin all over again in an operation that could take over an hour! And even then you still had to smuggle the corpse out of the cemetery!

Body-snatching, rather obviously, was against the law. Punishments for body-snatching ranged from fines to terms of imprisonment. Occasionally, body-snatching even resulted in execution. The famous body-snatchers, Williams Burke and Hare, who were Irish immigrants in Scotland, would actually murder people so that they could sell the corpses to Dr. John Knox, who ran an anatomy school in Edinburgh, Scotland. Burke was hanged for murder in January, 1829, after Hare testified against him. Hare was never prosecuted for murder and went free, but Burke’s body, as with all bodies that were hanged…was donated to a medical college for dissection. A rather fitting end.

The End of the Body-Snatchers

The crime of body-snatching, in the United Kingdom, at least, ended in 1832. The Burke and Hare murders had highlighted to the population that there was a serious and legitimate need of dead bodies, by medical instruction colleges. Doctors, surgeons and anatomists needed dead bodies if they were to teach medical students about their own bodies. In order to further the cause of medical science and to prevent further cases of body-snatching, the British parliament passed the Anatomy Act in 1832.

Under the Murder Act of 1752, only the bodies of executed criminals could be used for medical dissections. By the passage of the Anatomy Act of 1832, Parliament allowed, amongst other things…

— People to donate their remains to science in their wills (unless the family objected, and if they did, then the body would be interred).
— Doctors and surgeons the legal right to claim any unclaimed corpses from prisons or workhouses, for the purposes of medical science.
— For proper regulation of anatomical teachers (who were thereafter required to register a license as a lawful teacher of human anatomy).

 
by

Time in Motion: The Story of the Sea-Clock, or Harrison’s Chronometers.

Special Note: This article will concentrate on the life work of Mr. John Harrison, an 18th century clockmaker who, through literally decades of work, changed maritime navigation forever. It is not meant to be an in-depth look at the history of finding longitude, which is something that would take up the space of several articles!

A Problem at Sea

These days, navigation at sea is pretty easy. You have GPS, you have radio, you have compasses, clocks, maps and a million other navigational aids to get your ship from A to B nice and safe…dependent, of course, on the weather. But that’s now in the 21st Century. Three hundred years ago, maritime navigation was nowhere near as easy. Mariners were in constant danger of getting lost at sea due to not knowing where they were, how far they had travelled and how far they still had to go. On a ship at sea with limited supplies and limited time to find safe harbour, not knowing your position was a serious safety-hazard.

As everyone who’s passed highschool geography ought to know, the world is divided up in a grid by lines of latitude (horizontal lines that wrap around the earth and which stack up on each other), and lines of longitude, which go around the earth from east to west, meeting at the North and South Poles at the top and bottom of the globe. Back in the early 1700s and even before this, taking one’s ship out to sea was a dangerous endeavour. Once beyond the sight of land, it was very difficult to fix one’s position, and therefore know how far your ship had travelled.

The position of the sun changes at noon, due to the curvature of the earth; this is why at extreme points on the earth, such as near the poles, you might have full sun at midnight and nothing at all at midday. Sailors were able to determine their north-south latitude position by measuring the angle of the sun at noon against the horizon. This measurement obtained, they were able to mark on a chart, how far north or south they were of the midpoint of latitudes, the Equator. However, finding out how far east or west you were of a given position was considered impossible, because this required knowing very accurately, what the time was.

“Okay so you need to know what the time is to find your spot on the earth. Get a clock or a watch, dunk it on the ship and let’s go!” you probably say.

It isn’t that easy.

Clocks in the 17th and 18th centuries were large pendulum clocks (also called ‘grandfather’ clocks). Although a pendulum clock could keep almost perfect time on land, its ability to keep accurate time at sea was greatly diminished due to the fact that sailing ships rock, pitch, roll and sway on the ocean waves. Such aggressive movements threw the pendulum’s swing (and thus, the clock’s timekeeping abilities) off-beat, rendering the clock useless. The only watches available were old-fashioned pocket-watches, which, although they required no stable surface to keep time, unlike the pendulum clock, they were often not manufactured to such a level of quality as to keep time accurately at sea. Pocket-watches often varied several minutes a day. While to us a minute of difference either way doesn’t sound serious, a minute lost or gained at sea meant being off your position by as much as four degrees. If again, this doesn’t sound serious, it actually meant the possibility of being off your course and position by a matter of several miles.

Telling Time at Sea

While there were several proposals put forward on how to accurately determine a ship’s longitude, the one which most people are familiar with today, is the one involving time. The earth revolves at a constant rate. A full 360 degrees in twenty-four hours, or fifteen degrees each hour. By knowing the time at two places at once, a navigator could calculate fairly easily, his ship’s position of longitude.

If a ship left England at noon and sailed for America, it would be able to determine its position by checking the time on its sea-clock or marine chronometer, as is the correct term. When the chronometer showed it was noon in England, the navigator had to wait until it was noon onboard his ship and record the time-difference. A difference of two hours meant the ship had travelled thirty degrees (since the earth turns 15 degrees each hour). In theory, this was simple, but as I mentioned, the clocks available in the 1700s meant that keeping accurate time at sea was all but impossible.

John Harrison

After a series of catastrophic shipwrecks in the early 1700s, it was decided that the British Government had to put some serious thought into the safety of British sailors. In 1714, the year that King George I came to the throne and heralded the start of the Georgian Era, a board was set up, called the Board of Longitude. Its purpose was to judge and examine any and all schemes for successfully determining a ship’s position of longitude at sea. A prize of twenty thousand pounds sterling, was offered to any person or group of persons who successfully produced a device or a method by which longitude could be accurately determined at sea.

Enter John Harrison.

You couldn’t possibly find a more unlikely person to be the man who would change history so momentously, and who tackled the biggest technological problem of his generation. John Harrison was born in 1693. In 1714, he was a mere twenty-one years of age. John was born in the village of Foulby in West Yorkshire, the first of five children. His father made a modest living as a carpenter.

In 1700, the Harrison family moved to the village of Barrow-Upon-Humber in North Lincolnshire, the village where Harrison would spend almost the rest of his life.

In the 18th century it was common for children to follow their parents into their chosen professions. Watchmakers gave birth to watchmakers, lawyers to lawyers and carpenters to carpenters. With his father’s occupation as a carpenter, it was inevitable that John Harrison would follow his father into the woodworking trade. Only, instead of working on furniture, young John concentrated on something else. Clocks. He spent countless hours examining, disassembling and reassembling clocks and watches, until he knew them as well as he knew himself. One legend goes that when he was sick with smallpox in 1699, he was given a pocket watch to play with while in bed. He spent hours winding up the watch, holding it in his hands, looking at it, listening to it and opening it up to look at all the fiddly little moving parts inside it. By his early twenties, Harrison, who had previously been a bellringer at the local church as well as an apprentice carpenter to his father, officially decided that he would become a clockmaker. He completed his first, fully-functional clock in 1713 at the age of twenty.

Harrison was very good at what he did. A perfectionist with perhaps a slight twinge of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Harrison went over his pendulum clocks over and over and over again, checking and re-checking everything to make his machines more accurate. Considering that Harrison never had any formal education, never went to school and never went to university, he was doing very well in understanding such complex machines as mechanical clocks. Harrison had quite a reputation for his clocks. In an era where a good clocks kept time to a few minutes a week, Harrison’s clocks boasted accuracy to a few SECONDS a MONTH.


This clock, manufactured almost entirely of wood, was completed by John Harrison in 1717, at the age of 24!

The Longitude Prize

Sooner or later, Harrison was bound to find out about the longitude prize. With his background in clockmaking, Harrison was quick to grasp the fact that knowing one’s position at sea was best determined by knowing accurately, the time in two places at once: Onboard ship and at a home port. Unfortunately, as he also realised, such clocks as those which existed in the 1700s, were woefully inaccurate for the task which they would have to perform. Harrison, like so many others before him, recognised these problems with a clock keeping time at sea.

1. Temperature. Mechanical timepieces keep different times in different temperatures. Hot temperatures cause them to slow down, cold temperatures cause them to speed up. This is due to the wood or the metal inside the timepiece reacting to the temperature around it.

2. Humidity. Moisture affects how smoothly a clock runs. Condensation brought about by rapid temperature-changes could cause a clock to rust or collect water, which would slow it down.

3. Motion. The rocking, rolling, plunging and heaving of early sailing-ships meant that the clock or watch would be subjected to massive amounts of sudden and violent movement. A significant enough jolt, such as that produced by a ship sliding down the trough between two waves to impact against the next wave coming foward, would be enough to throw a clock off its accuracy, rendering it useless. And even without the storms, a swaying, rocking ship would not allow a clock’s pendulum to swing back and forth reliably enough to keep time.

To solve all these problems, Harrison knew he had to do some very careful thinking. By the 1720s, Harrison’s experience in clockmaking and timekeeping was significant. His fanaticisim with accuracy meant that he tested his clocks to make sure that they kept perfect time under every single variation he could think of. He solved the problem of clocks keeping time through temperature-differences by placing two clocks in two rooms in his house during a frigid day in winter. He built a great fire in the fireplace of one room and kept the other room freezing cold. He synchronised both clocks and then kept a check on how fast or slow each of the clocks were and adjusting their pendulums correctly.

Despite never having gone to school, despite never being taught how to read and write except through his own determination, Harrison wrote reams and reams of paper, covering his research into the affects of temperature, lubrication and the use of various metals had on his clocks. After years of research and experimentation, Harrison was ready to have a shot at the Longitude Prize.

There was just one problem.

Due to the great inaccuracy of clocks at the time, no scientist, naval or government official believed that any clock could be produced that would ever keep time at sea. This prejudice against clocks was widespread and it even included one of the most famous scientists of the day: Sir Isaac Newton. Harrison knew that he would have to be incredibly good with his work if he ever had a chance of claiming his twenty-thousand pound prize.

Time and Patience

Harrison made a total of five marine chronometers in his life, three clocks and two pocket-watches. His first clock, “H1”, was presented for trials in 1736. Harrison was forty-three years old.


A model of H1. The two counterweights at the top of the clock (linked by the metal coil in the middle) were designed to swing back and forth, to act as shock-absorbers against the rock and roll of the ship

H1 was taken for trials and Harrison accompanied his creation on his first and only trip to sea. His ship, the HMS Centurion, travelled from England to Portugal, docking in Lisbon. From there, Harrison caught the HMS Orford back to England. The crew of the Orford were much impressed by Harrison’s newfangled invention and praised him for his efforts. The Board of Longitude was also sufficiently impressed to pay him two hundred pounds sterling towards the development of another clock.

Harrison’s next clock, H2 was completed a few years later. Harrison knew that his clock had to be stronger and tougher. It was a machine, not a showpiece. This clock was more boxy and compact than H1, but it kept time just as well.


An old photograph of H2

The War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748) meant that Harrison wasn’t allowed to take his newest sea-clock on a trial voyage. Military officials were worried that the clock might fall into enemy hands. Instead, the Board of Longitude gave Harrison another five hundred pounds towards further development of his machines. The result was H3.


John Harrison’s marine chronometer officially called “H3”

While Harrison was happy with H3, he soon decided that he’d been wasting his life all these decades. While Harrison’s clocks all kept wonderful time and while they could be used at sea successfully, Harrison just wasn’t convinced that this was the right way to go. Clocks were bulky, expensive, delicate machines that took up space on a ship which had very little space to give. Frustrated, Harrison gave up on trying to make marine clocks and instead did a complete, 180-degree turn and considered manufacturing a marine watch instead.

The watch in the 18th century was the pocket-watch. A large, round, bulky thing, but small for the period. Most watches were expensive, but kept only mediocre time. Harrison was sure that he could improve on then-current designs, and come up with a masterpiece.

To help him in this endeavour, Harrison consulted a man named John Jeffreys, a professional watchmaker. Jeffreys agreed to manufacture a pocket watch for Harrison. But there was one catch. It was to Harrison’s own personal design. Jeffreys accepted the challenge and set to work.

When the watch, now known as “H4”, was completed, it was so incredibly accurate that Harrison was probably slamming his head against the wall at his own stupidity for wasting his life fiddling around with clocks instead of pocket-watches! H4 took six years to complete and was finally ready for testing in 1761, by which stage Harrison was nearly seventy years old!

Far too old to go to sea again, Harrison’s son, Joseph, agreed to test his father’s watch. Joseph boarded a ship, the HMS Deptford and set sail for Jamaica. After weeks at sea, Joseph Harrison determined that his father’s watch was off by a mere…five seconds.


Harrison’s masterpiece: H4

The Board of Longitude were not pleased. And neither would you be, if everything you said was wrong was suddenly proven right, and a watch or a clock could keep accurate time at sea! The father-son team of John and Joseph Harrison awaited their prize-money of twenty thousand pounds.

Which never came.

The Board of Longitude demanded another test. The outraged Harrisons had no choice but to oblige them, if only to prove them wrong, and Joseph Harrison packed his bags for another voyage, this time to Barbados. The watch didn’t fare quite so well this time, with Joseph making the inaccuracy to be thirty-nine seconds out. But things were made even worse by the appearance of a man named Nevil Maskelyne.

Maskelyne was easily Harrison’s arch-rival in the race for the Longitude Prize. Maskelyne was a proponent of the ‘Lunar Distance’ method of determining longitude at sea.
The moon moves at a constant rate around the earth; twelve degrees a day. By measuring the angles between the moon and sun before one left England and measuring these angles later when the moon was over the horizon, one could determine how far one had travelled.

There was one big problem with Maskelyne’s lunar-distance method. It was highly complicated; and most seamen were not mathematics whizzes who specialised in geometry. While Maskelyne’s method did work, Harrison believed it wholly impractical at sea due to how long it would take to calculate distance.

Claiming the Prize

Upon Joseph’s return to England, the Harrisons once again presented their results to the Board of Longitude. This time, the Board could not ignore the papers in front of them. Once is beginner’s luck. But…twice?

The Harrisons demanded their prize and were eventually offered ten thousand pounds sterling, if they agreed to turn over H4 for duplication by other watchmakers. The Harrisons did so, but the money was not forthcoming. In a twist of fate that must’ve made John Harrison rip his hair off his head, his rival, Maskelyne, was made Astronomer Royal, and thus, a member of the Board of Longitude, who could therefore influence the Board’s decisions. Maskelyne managed to find a loophole in the criteria for claiming the prize-money and effectively told the Harrisons to get lost and that they weren’t allowed the twenty thousand pounds.

Infuriated, Joseph Harrison took a pen and a piece of paper and in a very bold move, wrote directly to the one man he was sure could help him and his father claim the money which they knew was theirs.

While Joseph worked on his letters, John went back to watchmaking. In the 1760s and 70s, he created his fifth and final marine chronometer, H5. In 1772, Joseph finally had success.

The two Harrisons had managed to obtain a private audience with the King of England.

King George III listened patiently while the father and son team beat out their case in front of him. His Majesty was moved by their plight and was obviously not pleased at what was happening. He whispered to an aide that the two men had been “cruelly wronged”. After much consideration, George III took Harrison’s latest creation, H5, and performed accuracy tests on it himself, checking its timekeeping day in and day out for ten weeks, from May to July in 1772. George III, though famous for going positively looney, deaf and blind towards the last years of his life, was, amongst other things, an avid lover of science and technology. His observations told him that H5 kept time to 1/3 of a second a day! A phenomenal feat of accuracy in a day and age when a regular pocket-watch kept time to a minute a day! Eventually, the king called the Harrisons before him and advised them on a course of action. He suggested that the two Harrisons petition Parliament into giving them the twenty thousand pounds of prize-money and told them that if Parliament refused, to further add that the king himself would enter the chamber and give the entire house a good talking-to.

Well…no politician wants to be told off in public by his king.

Finally, in 1773, John Harrison got…well…some money. Eight-thousand, seven hundred and fifty pounds sterling, from Parliament, for his efforts.

If we add up all of the money that Harrison recieved for his work, we’ll find that it totals a whopping twenty-three thousand and sixty-five pounds! However, the official Longitude Prize of twenty-thousand pounds was never awarded to anyone, even though it should rightly have gone to John and Joseph Harrison.

Even when Harrison realised how much money he was making, he still wasn’t happy. He’d never recieved the public recognition of his achievements that he’d hoped for. It was as if the people in charge turned red-faced with embarrassment, shoved over a pouch of gold and then slammed the door in his face. By now, Harrison was eighty years old. Harrison had spent almost literally, his whole life trying to solve the biggest technological problem of his age, and he was never even thanked properly.

In the end, Harrison died at the age of eighty-three, barely able to live in retirement for a decent length of time to enjoy his riches. He passed away, aged 83, on the 24th of March, 1776. Ironically…the date of his death, was also the date of his birth, exactly 83 years before in 1693. He was buried in the churchyard of St. John’s Church, in Hampstead, London, alongside his second wife, Elizabeth, and their son William.

Harrison’s Legacy

Some people say that an artist’s work is never truly appreciated until they’re dead. In Harrison’s case, this was almost certainly it. Although he never recieved the fame, fortune and acclaim that he had hoped for in his own lifetime, Harrison’s lifetime of work saw the expansion of the British Empire by making sea-travel much, much safer.

And yet…despite all his efforts, marine chronometers were not widely used, initially. Their high manufacturing cost meant that these amazing machines were out of the reach of all but the wealthiest of seamen; those who had made lots of money as merchant captains or officers in the Navy, who could afford to purchase an expensive and accurate sea-clock for their ships. But as years went by, the use of marine chronometers eventually increased, until they were declared obsolete in the late 20th century, by the coming of GPS.


A marine chronometer clock, of the kind that was common from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries. The clock is housed in a special wooden case and is mounted on a gimbal so that it swivels and pivots. This way, the clock always lies flat, even if the ship is rolling and heaving at sea

Harrison’s clocks and watches were rediscovered in the early 20th century by Rupert Thomas Gould, a Royal Navy officer. He is credited with documenting, examining, restoring and preserving Harrison’s clocks and saving them from total destruction. It is thanks to his research and restoration-skills that H1, H2, H3, H4 and H5 are still around today. H1-3 have been reassembled and restored to operational condition. They may be seen at the National Maritime Museum at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England. H4 is also restored, but H5 still requires restoration. Only H1, 2 and 3 are in operation, however, since H4 and H5 require significant lubrication to operate successfully, whereas H1, 2 and 3 do not.


H5 (currently unrestored); the last marine chronometer that Harrison made, and the very one which was tested by King George III himself