From: Patrick Powers,
To: "Charles Gann", INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 15/07/99 16:27 PM
RE: URGENT! Authenticity of dial on ebay.
Message text written by "Charles Gann"
>Assuming the dial to be genuine, I had to wonder, where did the British
have a presence at 28-30 deg N lat. in 1701? A wild speculation on my part
would be northern India. A further search on the web revealed that the
British were in India as early as 1701. I also noted that the latitude of
Delhi (New Delhi) is a reasonable match for this dial.
Also, why would the maker use "Londini" rather than "London"? Was it a
common practice in 1701 to use latin place names on dials?
At any rate, it was fun to speculate on this dial. Please go to ebay and
take a look for yourselves. If the list consensus is that the dial is
authentic, then some of you with more money than me can fight over it! ;)
<
The patina of the dial and the condition of the underside looks reasonably
genuine though the dial itself might just be possibly be a copy. Quite
often in the early part of this century copies were made by use of
engraving using a pantograph to make duplicates sometimes of different
sizes. A lot of effort went into these and they look hand engraved and have
detailed designs on the gnomon. Such copies can still be moderately
valuable because of the handworking involved in their making. Having said
that this one doesn't look like one of those to me. Nonetheless, I cannot
really pronounce on the genuineness of it from the photos. The gnomon is
bent and should not be as it is. I would have liked to see some evidence
of the mounting supports which were often embedded in lead in holes in the
top of the plinth.. They don't seem to have survived.
There is no dial by a 'J Mills' on the BSS Register - though that doesn't
mean to say that he didn't exist. Often clock makers also made dials and
there is a John Mills recorded as a member of the Clockmakers Company of
London who was operating around 1713. The BSS register has a dial on
record as having been made by a Thos Mills in 1720. His name does not
appear in the Clockmakers lists however. That dial also has an 8pt star
and, incidentally it has a gnomon angle of 45 degrees - equally odd for
Britain.
It was certainly the most common practice to use Latin for place names and
sometimes even for the makers name too. Some dials were indeed made in
London (and elsewhere in the UK) for use abroad. We try and record them
when any such are found. On NO account should any purchaser 'clean up'
this dial - the patina (if it is as it looks in the photo) is one of the
things which proves its age.
Patrick
