pewter history

Tin was available to the Romans both from their possessions in the Iberian Peninsula and in the
British Isles. It was an important ingredient in bronze, but when mixed with lead (first in the 3rd
century AD ) it produced the first pewter. A few hundred pieces of Roman pewter, however, are
all that remain. No other early pewter, from Roman times until the 14th century, is known, except
for the chalices and patens found in priests' tombs at Metz, France. Pewter, however, was
probably made in some quantity. Churches too poor to own silver communion plates were allowed
to use pewter after the 11th century; it was a flourishing craft when it came to be regulated in the
14th century in England. Pewter was commonly used for the eating and drinking vessels of the
lower classes all over Europe, except in Spain. The metal is silver-colored when new and dulls to a
pleasing, lustrous gray. In form, it was made in the usual shapes for pottery or silver and tended to
rely on proportion and appropriateness rather than on decoration for its appeal. Some pewter,
however, was decorated in the 16th and 17th centuries with cast motifs, particularly on the lids and
handles of tankards; in Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia incised decoration or undulating
lines made with a wheel were popular.

American pewter is highly prized by collectors for its amplitude and dignity, as well as for its
connection with the country's early history. Dates and the initials of the owners are often found on
it. Old pewter is comparatively rare, for it was the established practice everywhere to take old or
deformed pieces back to the pewterer as part payment toward new purchases. Pewter was largely
supplanted by silvered base metals in the 19th century, although it has reappeared in the present
century for household items such as tankards and flatware