Treasure of the Month

The catalogue is part of a small collection of original advertising material and catalogues that is held in the Assay Office Library. We also have material from Liberty and Co (a catalogue for its famous Cymric range, a piece of which featured in the last Treasure of the Week), other London jewellers, and the Birmingham companies A.E. Jones, Charles Green and Elkington. On first glance, old catalogues might not seem to be much of a treasure. But to the historian of jewellery, metalwork or…

This week’s glimpse into the collections at Birmingham Assay Office offers a peek inside the world of 1ate 18th and early 19th century advertising, marketing and shopping. It is an album of original advertising handbills and trade cards that offer the wares of shopkeepers, the hospitality of inn keepers and the services of tradesmen in Birmingham and London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. These paper remnants of the past are a wonderful record of social and economic history, e…

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a beautiful range of silver inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement was manufactured in Birmingham.