Wendy continues the story:

Time to rethink - so I went backwards and began again from the “process” point of view beginning with goldsmiths and how the metal is made.

Having done wire drawing (the process of stretching or “drawing” metal out to a longer length) and being familiar with the tools I started there. The actual process which is still used today was a mid fourteenth century invention of Rudolf Nuremburg and was kept secret for several generations until it was introduced to England about 1565 and produced gold, silver and silver gilt wire that was much finer than had been available previously.

As a side bar here- an interesting tidbit;

Wire drawing was used for the manufacture of pins as well. In Great Industries of the United States: being an historic survey 1873 – page 1286

“ In this country wire drawing, upon which the manufacture of pins depends, was first introduced in Plymouth Colony. In October 1666 Nathaniel Robbinson, ‘Wyre-drawer”; petitioned the General Court for aid in establishing the businesses. The court however did not grant his request. In the same month of the next year Joseph Jenks, Sr. desired “ the favor of the court to advance a some for encouragement of wyre-drawing. The court, in reply, thought it “not meet to advance any money on that design; but being desirous to encourage all persons among us in manual arts and trade of publicque vtilitye, and being informed that there are in this towne a sett of tooles for wyer-drawing, and that there be some in this place that are able and skillful in that imploy, the improvement whereof would be of great use in sundry respects, this court doth therefore order the Treasurer of the county to disburse out of the public treasury such a sume of money as will be necessary for the purchase of the said instruments and tooles, not exceeding fifteen pounds ; and the Treasurer and Mayor- Generall Leveret are appointed and empowered to dispose of the said instruments so as may best further the ends proposed, as also to disburse forty shillings for the encouragement of those that shall make cards and pins of the said wiar.”

Here we are at Plimoth in the wardrobe department (surrounded by pins!) and a set of tools had been here! The connections are amazing.

Wendy

Tags: pins, Plymouth Colony, Spangles, wire

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 8:24 pm and is filed under Historical Background, Lace, Spangles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.