Irish Decanter

This is the wreck of an Irish decanter, circa 1820.

I went to Ireland on holiday last year and bought this from an antiques shop in the middle of no where, where this and another were gathering dust on top of a curtain pelmet. What is so cool about it is that it was traditionally repaired, probably 150 years ago, with a staple and metal band. These would have been applied hot and in contracting on cooling would have pulled tight. The idea being to stop the crack getting any bigger.

This same technique was also used for repairing broken pottery. It is not common to see this, as I expect most of the pieces repaired like this would have been thrown away. This is a piece of social history as it shows how people cared for what was originally an expensive piece of tableware.

Worth every penny of the £5 I paid for each of the decanters.