I was driving back from Ottawa, ON on Friday and decided to hit the site west of Kingston, ON where I found my first British Officers Badge last summer. I lowered my discrimination to 25 and decided to dig anything consistent in the 40 – 70 range as this site is extremely trashy! My first find was the iron stirrup, which hit at 65 on the VDI, next came the brass spigot and last the copper plate. This unusual copper ‘plate’ has square nail holes and I feel was likely used to patch something… sure wish there had been some writing on it though! I've also included pics of the stirrup after 24hrs of tumbling and a piece of cast iron with some interesting detail.
This ‘Fiddian’ style spigot was used on wooden beer, wine and water barrels. These spigots often have the name stamped "Fiddian" on the top turnkey; it’s rare to find an example with the key, as they were often lost as on this piece. W. Fiddian & Co., Great Hampton Street, Birmingham, started up sometime before 1816 making brass candlesticks, bells and spigots, up until c1870 when the company was taken over by James Barwell.
'Spigot' is the name of an old type of tap for a barrel or cask, consisting of a hollow, tapering tube, which was driven at the narrow end into a barrel, and a screw into the tube, which regulated the flow of the liquid. Purportedly, it seems the spigot was the tube, the faucet the screw, but the senses have merged or reversed over time. ‘Faucet’ is now the common word in American English for the whole apparatus.
Thanks for looking,
Dave
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