Thanksgiving with all the Fixings
Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Progressive Bronze wishes you safe travels, full bellies, and great times with family and friends. And if you get a little fershnickered and break an antique, give us a call on Monday.
Speaking of broken antiques, in late October we got a call from a local Chicago collector regarding a broken wall sconce. The center arm of the piece had come right off, and he was hoping to have it repaired and ready for Thanksgiving. He sent us these pictures of the damage:
Looking at the pictures, it seemed like something we could take care of – but without seeing the piece in person it was impossible to be sure. If the sconce turned out to be white metal instead of brass or bronze there wasn’t much we could do. Those materials just don’t weld the same way as higher quality alloys. We also let the collector know that if we could fix the sconce, the heat associated with the weld would lead to some discoloration. To fix this we could refinish, or clean it up as well as we could if he’d rather not go the refinishing route.
When the collector brought the sconce in to our factory a day or two later, we quickly determined that the sconce was indeed brass, so we could certainly do the repair. He also let us know that it is one of a pair made in France during the reign of Louis XV, circa 1770. Because of that, we definitely didn’t want to refinish, as it would destroy the desirable patina. He gave us the go ahead to repair, and we got to work.
By the 1st of November, the repair was finished. As expected, there was some discoloration, but nothing our craftsmen couldn’t clean up without damaging the piece.
Once the sconce was back home with its twin and installed, our very happy collector sent us these pictures. Can you guess which one we repaired? (It’s the one on the left.)
As you can see, it is nearly impossible to tell anything ever happened to the sconce at all. Our collector now has a lovely piece once again and an excellent story to go with his Thanksgiving dinner.
