Fairbairns Book of Crests of the Families Of Great Britain and Ireland first published in two volumes in 1859 with later editions in 1892 and reprinted in 1902, and 1905, and reprinted in 1983. This book of Heraldic Crests was likely for those who knew the family name and were interested in what crest was theirs.

Buyers beware – there are several versions of this reprinted by others which are poorly printed.

As collectors if we have a piece with a crest on it and would perhaps like to know for whom it was made. To attempt to make this possible the book was entirely scanned in and made word searchable. There are notes on the last page of how to word search from the Crest drawing reference hopefully back to the family name. Problems arise that were insurmountable given reasonable time spent. 

Standards of proof reading in this publication in 1905 were not to the standard of today. Some crests take you to more than one family, some crests contain more or less than the description given.

The download is for a PDF of 1108 pages, (leaving 469 pages of other reading new here this year).

Other additions include the first known attempt to give biographical detail to Robert M Vetter who helped HH Cotterell for many years for little reward. This is in English written by an experienced Dutch Collector and researcher and is found in READING

As is - The Pewterers of Penrith – with kind permission of the author. MEASURES shows the hammerheads of John Grave pewterer of Penrith.

In ARTICLES there is an article on the tea pots found in Morocco, and the Manchester connection. For those interested the second part of “The Best Old Pewter Deal You Never Heard of”. There is ongoing research into where the family who bought Dr Young’s collection money came from with a remote possibility that it traces back to John Trapp.

Also in ARTICLES - European Pewter is shown in a large PDF of “Tankards & Flagons” which gives the results of research into European Pewter with examples of marks and pieces (attempts to contact the author failed).

PEWTER COLLECTING You might be interested in the interior seams of baluster measures and what that might tell the collector. In Pewter Collecting those of DVs, Buds, and Hammerheads are shown.

In FAKES a gallon DV tells a different ‘seam’ story.

Two original articles on Channel Islands Pewter can be found in the REGIONAL selection.

In REPAIRS two pieces of Art Nouveau are shown, only one is repaired but the other has interest.

We hope that you enjoy these latest updates

If you want more detail on Old British Pewterers' Makers' Marks then some collectors still think and might tell you that the H H Cotterell book of 1929 - "Old Pewter: Its Makers and Marks" - will provide this. Indeed, it alone did so for many years. However, whereas that had information on 9000 British Pewterers, the UK Pewter Society data base now has some detail of 20,000 Pewterers, including some family trees, relationships, apprenticeships, sometimes examples of individuals work. It includes over 9000 examples of Pewterer's MARKS and wares.

This database alone offers real detail on many more Pewterers and thus the marks you see on your pewter left by the maker begin to have much more meaning.

See - www.pewtersociety.org

This website has no approval from or direct relationship with the UK Pewter Society, although various articles were written by Pewter Society members and the Acting Librarian has provided encouragement and material used.