Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I THE IRONIC POSITION OF THE AMATEUR COLLECTOR |HE collector of old pewter plate seems always to have been in an ironic situation. In the early days of the latter half of the last century the few collectors who were discerning enough to care about the ware were in an exceptional position, finding much of the old plate at hand, but, regarding it historically, very little information indeed. Within the last ten years the position naturally enough is reversed; we find able histories on the subject but, unfortunately for the amateur, very little veritable pewter. There are really only two reasons why those interested in the subject to-day are not thorough masters of it; the one, if it obtains, easily overcome, the other less readily—the first being lack of zeal in persistent study of literature on the subject, now happily within the reach of all, andthe second and more serious the lack of the ware itself, for it is almost an essential factor to the proper appreciation of pewter that the student and the amateur should have constant personal contact with it. Indeed, intimacy with the ware is the first and last requisite, and serious study of the subject from an historical point of view, while certainly desirable, does not lessen the obligation nor obviate the necessity of "living with" the ware. In view of the scarcity of good examples of pewter, the position of the amateur to-day requires perhaps a greater sense of humour than was necessary even in the previous generation if the game is to be kept a pleasurable one, and the moment it becomes irksome it becomes a burden that had much better be dropped. A collector obviously overburdened with his responsibilities is one of the saddest exhibits on earth, although only a little more so than one persistently enteri...