Old Glasses “Engraved Up”
Jacobite, Williamite, and Hanover or Trafalgar glasses being in great demand, ingenious persons take a real old wine glass, goblet, or rummer, that is plain and innocent at the time, and engrave it with Jacobite emblems or “Bonny Prince Charlie’s” head, or William of Orange on horseback, or “Trafalgar,” or “Nile.” As a rule the evident newness, roughness, and lack of “wear” of such added engraving condemn it, to the eye and to the finger; but very ingenious persons use chemicals, or mud, or attrition, in order to disguise the whitish-grey tint of newly engraved glass; if part of the engraving be “buffed” up—that is, polished till it is bright, transparent, and not the tint of ground glass (see centre of rose, page 70), detection becomes more difficult.