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Description: | A Post Medieval lead alloy toy watch modified to be a whirligig or buzz-wheel dating to the 18th century. The whirligig has been made from the circular dial plate of a toy pocket watch. The dial plate has a circumferential groove which encloses the chapter ring which is marked with engraved Roman hour numerals I-XII and slashes to indicate the half-hours. A plain inner band encircles the dial centre which is decorated with raised baroque scrolling around two cartouches, the upper inscribed HUX and the lower LONDON. The centre of the dial plate is very worn and only the lower cartouche reading LONDON can still be seen. There is a central circular perforation for the articulation of the hand. To adapt the dial plate into a whirligig two further perforations have been created, one either side of the central original hole. They appear to have been created by applying a hot tool which has melted a hole through the lead alloy. Teeth has been cut into the outer edge of the dial plate to create the distinctive buzzing noise of these toys when they are rotated on strings. There is some damage to the edge of this toy and a small section of the outer edge is missing.Forsyth & Egan (2005:373) illustrate a complete example of these multi-component toy watches and note the date range as 1700-1750. The authors also illustrate several whirligigs which have also been made from other objects, e.g. a toy frying pan (no. 13.5) or a counter (no. 13.1). They note that this reuse of material makes it very difficult to date the whirligigs because it is impossible to know how long the coins, counters and toys may have been in circulation or used before they were modified. They continue "whirligigs seem to have been particularly popular during the 18th century, and many examples in metal and ceramics have been recovered from excavations of Colonial and Revolutionary sites in America".Dimensions: thickness: 2.35mm; diameter: 39.35mm; weight: 10.37g.Reference: Forsyth, H. and Egan, G. 2005. Toys, Trifles and Trinkets. Base Metal Miniatures from London 1200 to 1800. Unicorn Press, London.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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