Collectors of old Sheffield plate make a great mistake in constantly demanding that examples be marked. If this demand for marks on old Sheffield plate be insisted upon, the marks will accordingly be supplied. There is nothing to prevent stamps being made to represent some of the marks found on old Sheffield plate, and unmarked pieces will soon bear marks and straightway become more saleable. The public by incessant clamour drive those responsible for providing for its wants into devious paths. The dealer in old Sheffield plate has scores of fine unmarked examples and he is wishful to sell them as such. They are undoubtedly old and of fine quality. It should be the ideal of the collector to know the technique of his subject so well that the artistic beauty and the skilful craftsmanship of an example should make its appeal to his trained scrutiny irrespective as to whether there is any maker's mark on the piece or not. The seams on old pieces showing joins are a far better test of old workmanship as between old Sheffield plating and modern electro-plating. These seams are the hall marks of the makers a century and a century and a half ago. INDEX Abbotsford, Scott's introduction of gas at, 116 Adam design, example of hot water jug, 228 Adam style of design, the, 85 Addison omits Shakespeare from list of great poets, 51 Advertisement of Pinchbeck (1732), 54 Allan David, copyist of old masters, 21 Anonymity of Sheffield plated ware, 289 Arrows, the crossed, as a mark, various types of, 286 Artistic value of old Sheffield plate, 60, 61 Assay offices, examples of marks used at, 274-282 "Below the salt," its meaning, 136 Birmingham Assay Office, institution of, 41 Birmingham-- hall marks on silver plate, 281 its silver plated marks registered at Sheffield, 68 silver platers, rise of, 68 Boulsover, Thomas (1704-1788), inventor of Sheffield silver plating, 46 obituary notice of, 47 Boulton, Matthew, Birmingham (Boulton and Fothergill), (M. Boulton and Co.), 68 Buckle makers, the, 262 Buttons made by Thomas Boulsover, 47, 53 Button makers in Dublin (1792), 73 Cabinet makers, French, stamped marks of, 237 Caddies, tea, and their makers, 196 Cadman, Robert, and Co., (Sheffield), 89 Cake baskets, Sheffield plated, 165 Candelabra-- and candlesticks, 79-131 old silver, London makers of, 274 Candelabrum, the-- its varieties, 90 the tri-form, 115 Candlestick-- the chamber, 119 the table, 120 Candlesticks-- early types, 81 from eighteenth century Pattern Books, 74, 86, 89 old silver, London makers of, 274 Sheffield plated, their price, 269 Carteret's "Drunken Administration," 48 Centrepiece, the, 245