William Anderson Dress Sporran

[MacGumerait]

StevieR , beautiful sporran and like others , I admire it's classic look , very nice score !

You may want to be cautious about having something that is plated be engraved , as it can result in flaking . Plating is not as forgiving as solid brass , solid silver , etc . Silver plate can be engraved but it depends on the quality of the plating . I would imagine the quality of plating on your cantle is very good given the origin and the age .

I would recommend asking Artificer about the idea of engraving a silver plated cantle, he has probably encountered it in the past . It is such a nice sporran and it would be a shame if an attempt to engrave it ended in messing up the cantle .

I am certainly not an expert in this field , but I have seen attempts of engraving plated metal end up good and bad .

Once again , great score !

Cheers , Mike

[artificer]

StevieR , beautiful sporran and like others , I admire it's classic look , very nice score !

You may want to be cautious about having something that is plated be engraved , as it can result in flaking . Plating is not as forgiving as solid brass , solid silver , etc . Silver plate can be engraved but it depends on the quality of the plating . I would imagine the quality of plating on your cantle is very good given the origin and the age .

I would recommend asking Artificer about the idea of engraving a silver plated cantle, he has probably encountered it in the past . It is such a nice sporran and it would be a shame if an attempt to engrave it ended in messing up the cantle .

I am certainly not an expert in this field , but I have seen attempts of engraving plated metal end up good and bad .

Once again , great score !

Cheers , Mike

Spot on, MacGumeralt- my thoughts exactly.

With a cantle of this nature being one piece, cutting or stamping is going to have to be achieved one of two ways, either completely disassembling the cantle to do the cutting and stamping, or the much more laborious (and therefore, expensive) shallow cutting for the piercing rather than a standard jeweler's saw, and the making of a special form to insert into the cantle to support the panel as it's embossed with the cup and ring (goddess' eyes).

With silver plate you're almost guaranteed to need it re-plated after this type of work, as you're cutting through the plating in some spots and stamping into it in others.

In my opinion I'd keep the lovely piece as is. You'll probably spend more on the reworking of it than you did on the whole piece.

BTW: why does it need re-plating as is? Is there corrosion that the pictures don't show? A little age showing on a piece like this certainly doesn't offend.

ith: