More for the Tinsmith

We have been keeping our eyes peeled for more to flesh out (so to speak) our Tinsmith Collection. There has been a significant collection in storage since it was obtained in 1976. The other day we pulled fair bit of it out of the loft and moved it into our new store room, so Linda can start cataloguing it in her spare time. Then we will have some idea of what we have.

So we were excited the other day to find a couple of things in a load of what would otherwise be considered rubbish, that came in with a Super Spreader collected from Berwick.

Firstly, there was this tin - possibly a commercial bread loaf tin. It had obviously been consigned to the shed, and used for storing parts. What took our eye is that it is a quite complex piece of work by a Tinsmith - you start to see their work everywhere, when you start to look.

Below is a close-up of one end - the tin has been formed by cutting to a pattern, folding it over and then riveting on another two strips. The rim has then been formed by turning the tin over wire.

So yes, we know it is in dreadful condition, but we have a Fairy Godfather called Glenn in the workshop, and we may ask him if he is able to clean this up.

In the same load were two wooden containers of the type used for bits and pieces in workshops, before plastic and mass-produced tinware became common. Both were made from end-pieces of wood, with the first one having a base of tongue-and-groove lining board scraps.

Normally, these are the types of items that are discarded when there is a clean-up. In this case we will accession them in, and use them to store some of the myriad small parts we already have found in the Tuck Tinsmith Collection.