| DESCRIPTION |
Particularly good and highly decorated pair of Irish Georgian silver sugar nips with the original initials engraved to the tops of the finger rings. In 2010 I had a pair of Irish nips, item
m3976, requiring a little hinge maintenance. Once the hinge box was apart I noticed that the inside face of both hinge plates had been struck repeatedly with the maker's punch. Inside this hinge box I have found the same. Irish sugar nips are rare
and my silversmith can remember seeing only these two Irish pairs in over fifty years but has seen hundreds of English pairs and none were similarly marked, nor marked at all, within the box. Why the Irish silversmiths marked their nips in this way is
a mystery and I have only one credible theory. The repeated striking with a hard steel punch would significantly harden the silver and their maker's punch would be the ideal and possibly only suitable implement available to them. Hard steel was a rare
and expensive commodity at the time. The benefits from hardening the silver within the hinge are conceivable but why the Irish smiths considered it necessary whilst the English did not is uncertain. The most obvious differences between the Irish and
English nips are that Irish nips tend to be larger with correspondingly wider hinge box plates and are often strongly engraved all over with a flower motif. Perhaps they considered one or both of these factors had the potential to weaken the box but if
that was really the case then why not just make the box a little thicker? All comments would be welcome. |
