Note on the supposed "Charter Chest of Johnny Faa" and its contents--probably the official box and plates, with trade marks of the Incorporation of Pewterers of Edinburgh / by John Alexander Smith.

Date:: [1871?]

Credit: Note on the supposed "Charter Chest of Johnny Faa" and its contents--probably the official box and plates, with trade marks of the Incorporation of Pewterers of Edinburgh / by John Alexander Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$a St Andrew's Cross; another witli the addition of initials, monograms of initials as J. S., and simple initials. One displays the initials J. R, with the date, 1600, above them. Then we have simply a castle; next we have the castle, varying in style, with initials on each side, and later, with the addition of a date below the castle; the first being 1610, with the initials G. G. This series of castle stamps then runs regularly on over the plate, with varj'ing initials and dates down to the year 1764. A few stamps of a different character occur among the earlier castle stamps, as, for example, one displays the initials and a hammer between; another initials and a small expanded rose bet\veen them, and the date 1616; this last single stamp is repeated on the back of the plate, which is otherwise plain. The second plate bears only two stamps, the castle, with the initials J. B. and the date 1760, and another with the initials J. G. and the date 1764. Besides these official like plates, the box contains two cut portions of apparently an ordinary pewter plate; one of these bears two stamps, a large expanded rose, like the rose on the early coins of England, witli a crown above, and with the initials on each side. The other portion of pewter plate bears a slightly differing rose, &c., and is inscribed below it HARD MET—the rest of the word being illegible, probably for hard metal; evidently the stamp for some particular kind or quality of a comjjound metal, probably pewter as contrasted with a softer quality of the metal. The box lilcewise contains a small pewter cup. If inches high by li inch broad, with the initials A W scratched on its side. There is also a small squared piece of pewter with a couple of stamps on it, of the castle, and dates 1669 and 1671. The statement in the MS. paper seems a very extraordinary explanation f the box and its contents, and not a very satisfactory one. The idea f the wild Gipsy Faas of Yetholm cawying about this almost empty box, with its stamped plates of pewter and dates thereon, as their mysterious antliority to rove about the country, seems to me too wonderful to be true—at least in the total absence of any apparent evidence to support it. the other hand, the box, with its rich ornamental iron uiountiiigs, as I have said, has a certain official-like character, and AviMi its regular scries of stamped impressions and dates on the peculiarly shaped pewter ])lates, ^•■eni to me, in want of a better explanation, mucli more suggestive ol it.s liaving been the official record of the trade or as.^ay marks of s(.n:e$