The coppersmith has taken a prominent place among the craftsmen of all nations, and at all periods, and in not a few instances he has been acknowledged as an artist of no mean order. The material upon which he has worked has been copper and its alloys and compounds. From this metal have been produced many valuable antiques, and among the work of the coppersmith of more recent days there are objects of intense interest and of great beauty. In this work many collectable objects have been classified, and in the different groups of metal-work referred to attention is drawn to these beautiful and sometimes quaint reminders of past generations, and also to some of the most notable non-collectable metal-work which may be seen and admired in museums and art galleries, and to a few of the copper monuments, memorials, and historic relics which are gazed at by the curious, oftentimes without thought of the materials of which they are composed. Ancient Bronze. The raw material, copper, smelted and beaten or poured from a crucible into moulds, was in more ancient times used in its unalloyed purity--and it is still used in that state. It was, however, soon discovered that copper might be improved for many purposes by mixing with it other metals possessing different properties. The prehistoric peoples who lived in Britain, and in other countries within reach, soon added tin, which was found in Cornwall quite near to the surface, and was from early times sold to Phoenician traders, thereby producing bronze. It is of this metal that most of the much valued curios of the so-called Bronze Age are made. Those who fashioned them were clever manipulators of the alloyed metal, and by processes now little understood were able to temper tools and weapons and to give them keen-cutting edges. Our museums are full of spear-heads, celts, axes, and palstaves of bronze, which were cast in moulds of stone cut to the required shapes by those primitive workers in metal, who used simple crucibles in which it was melted. [Illustration: FIG. 2 (1).--BRONZE BUCKLER FROM THE THAMES VALLEY. FIG. 3 (2).--ANOTHER BUCKLER FROM ABERYSTWYTH. (_In the British Museum._)] The prehistoric bronzes, some examples of which are referred to in another chapter, are the earliest collectable curios formed of metal. They include implements of war and of the chase and some domestic utensils and cooking vessels. To these useful objects must be added ornaments and trinkets of bronze, so many of which have been found in the barrows and burying-places of prehistoric races. The knowledge of bronze appears to have been widespread. It was understood by those who dwelt in this country, by the inhabitants of European countries, by Eastern nations, and by the Egyptians, who left such wonderful monuments behind them, giving evidence that they knew how to impart a knife-like edge to their tools of bronze. Bronzes of Greece and Rome and Eastern Nations.