Featured Victorian/Georgian-era Quizzing Glasses

I won this lot at my very first night-auction at my local auction-house. Was very, very excited! I've been chasing after a quizzing glass for damn near 10 years and now I have FOUR to choose from! Three are sterling silver and one of them is pinchbeck brass. One of them is not that old I don't think, but the others are all early Victorian or late Georgian in style.

The lot also came with two pairs of lorgnettes in gold-filled brass. They don't interest me much, so I'm going to try and sell those off. A friend of mine recovering from eye-surgery is already thinking of buying one so that she can have them fitted out as reading-glasses But I'm keeping the quizzers for myself!!

 

Interesting terminology, which I have not heard before. Is it an Oz thing or British?

 

Thanks, Davey. So they are what we call over the pond "magnifying glasses?"

 

A quizzing glass was a popular Georgian and Victorian-era accessory. They're small pocket-sized magnifying glasses. Exactly why they attained the name QUIZZING GLASS, I'm not sure, but that is the correct term for them.

 

Guess if you had a question about something small you were looking at, you quizzed it.

Is the pendant on the left in the second photo a vinaigrette?

 

The 2 in the last photo appear to have moving parts. What do they do?

 

I think I said that they were quizzing glasses and lorgnettes.

 

Now you need to find a nice Claude Glass.

 

I acquired this one at an estate sale for a connoisseur of miniature antique sewing tools. I needed a loupe, claimed it and started using it on the spot - Not able to inspect it with itself(?) I assumed it was Goldette. I didn't figure out til later - when I noticed the raw beveling on the glass - it may have been something that she wore in her research.

Anyways - how can you tell yours is pinchbeck. @Shangas ?

This was on a long watch chain. Yours are so great!

 

"Pinchbeck" is the name given to a type of high-gloss/high-polished glittering gold-coloured alloy of copper and zinc.

Basically it's brass. Very very shiny, specially-formulated brass. I believe it had a higher zinc content than normal, so as to give it a brighter shine and to prevent tarnishing (it's the copper content in brass that makes it tarnish).

It was invented in the 1700s by Christopher Pinchbeck, as a cheaper imitation of gold (at the time, the only gold purity available was 18k, which is obviously bloody expensive).

Pinchbeck has no hallmarks though, obviously. So if it looks like gold and hallmarks it don't have, then it's probably brass. And if it's as old as the Georgian era or early Victorian era, then it's most likely pinchbeck brass. Or at least that's what my research tells me.

You have a lovely example there, also likely made of pinchbeck. I've started wearing my silver glass on a silver watch chain, and my pinchbeck one on a brass, gold-filled watch-chain.

 

Thanks - I love it, but don't really wear it anymore. It's a little bendy, and I don't want to have to keep bending it back! Plus, the lens is a little scratched

It's said that the Pinchbecks (father and son) ended up clearly marking their work, they knew the name was being used without the formula they had invented... So, I wouldn't be so sure mine is... but then again - I've never seen a piece of Pinchbeck "clearly labeled"

I took it to a jeweler - he didn't actually know anything about pinchbeck. The bezel tests 14k and the ornamental elements 10k. Since I wouldn't let him cut into it, he looked at it at length and found a very tiny amount of green, which he indicated to mean it was heavily plated... So I guess it's not Pinchbeck, after ALL THAT! lol

This is a computer screenshot of a phone screenshot from a magnifier app (!)
Sorry, I forgot who to credit for that!

 

The french name used by commercial antiquities sellers or auctioneers is “face à main“ for the item to the left you ask about, in french "lorgnette" is a small telescope used in theater, called too "jumelles de theatre" and which you can acquire new until today.
Those ancient magnifying glasses are more rare than the others optical helps from the past like the "face à main".

 

Interesting term. Learn something new every day. Appears to be a precursor to a loupe but larger.

 

It was what we called toaday a loupe, made for reading or looking something you can't see without glasses.
I have one dating from the beginning of the 20th century in the same quality.

 

Beautiful -- and once again, I learned a lot.

 

Hello, could I ask your opinion on the age and material of this quizzing glass? Georgian, pinchbeck? Thank you!

Quizzing glass by Dia posted Jun 1, 2022 at 5:07 PM

 

I daresay it's pinchbeck.

The lens is looking rather dinged-up. No matter. You can get that replaced. Take it to your local optometrist and see what they can do about that.

 

Thank you, Shangas. I can't complain about the lens as I paid $3 for it. Even chipped, it does it's job (I bought it to aid with my nature journaling) and it kind of gives it extra character. First time I've heard of quizzing glasses and pinchbeck, fascinating!