MtMan-List: Old vs new equipment (was Re: Brass)

[mxhbc@ttacs1.ttu.edu (Henry B. Crawford)]

>I don't know what you are doing with the brass but you can go to a stain
>glass supply store and get a bottle of patina for brass.  But If you are
>using it for re-enactment you might want to think people that we protray
>would have new looking items.  Like beads, most people like the old
>beads but we should be wearing new beads not old beads with our out
>fits.  Later Jon Towns


That's a good point, John.  I recently did a lecture in Roswell, NM on the
subject of living history and discussed the notion that many new reenactors
have; that their stuff has to look old.  As I told my audience, for the
periods we depict, whether it's fur trade, Civil War, or whatever (I do
them all) the equipment we have should look somewhat used, but not old.
Items should not look over a hundred years old, because they would not have
been "back then."  For the most part you'd be using new or relatively new
provisions.

Keep that in mind, because that's a good argument for using repros as much
as possible.   Only in rare occasions would one have use old items, such as
if your character is using something that would have been a family
heirloom.  This is the standard we in the museum profession use in living
history programs.  We show the originals but *whenever possible*, we try to
use exact reproductions in demonstration.

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Henry B. Crawford        Curator of History
mxhbc@ttacs.ttu.edu     Museum of Texas Tech University
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FAX 742-1136             Lubbock, TX  79409-3191
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