The Watchdog
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THE WATCHDOG. - A QUARTERLY REVIEW FOR CIVIL WAR REENACTOnu A Volume 8, NO. 4 Guarding your interests.. FALL 2000 Welcome to the ranks! as someone who "knows what he is doing." A newcomer to our community recently wrote the DOG: If you commit to a progressive impression, you'll be tempted to "cheap out" on say an inexpensive shirt with bad buttons, I just finished my first reenactment and loved it! Fortunately terrible pattern material, and machine sewn button holes; or a for me a unit loaned me some equipment. I don't know if I can crimped cup with one of those square handles. After all: it's borrow again, so I need to get some equipment. It all seems so "only a shirt," or it's "only a cup." You may even give into expensive! Do you have any advice for me, or is there any place temptation and purchase the cup, or the shirt, or both. And it'll to buy used equipmentfor less? Ifyou can help me at all, please be OK for a while, but you will see your pards with those nice respond. hot-dipped tin cups that look so great, or that nice, subtle pattern shirt with small period buttons that just looks so.. .right. You'll Like most queries, this one was passed on to all the editors. think: "I'd like to get me one of those cups (or shirts)." So you Mr. Braun's response bears repeating. ask you pard where he got his cup or shirt, and he tells you, and before too long you place an order. Well, sir, that order arrives Bob (not the person's real name) you have already received one day in the mail ...and there it is! A truly great cup or a some advice from Mr. Christen on purchase of quality Civil wonderful shirt that really looks like it stepped out a museum War uniforms and equipage. I echo his words, and add the case! So you bring your new goods out to theqnext event, and following from my own experiences in the hobby: you look and feel great! Except that old junk cup and crummy cheap shirt now takes up room in your closet or war chest, and I learned a long time ago that real quality must be paid for. you realize that you're out the cost of those items, and the cost Unlike items you buy in stores today, where quality is measured of the new, correct goods! See how you could have saved money in terms of life span, quality reproduction American Civil War by buying the good stufffirst? items are based on how closely they approximate the original One warning.. .once you trek down the "progressive" road, item. Some of these original items had, for example, thinner you'll never want to go back. Once you embrace quality, you'll leather, thinner gage of metal, and occasional "mistakes" in unconsciously be unsettled at anything less. You'll be on a sewing that much of today's so-called "quality" reproductions constant quest to learn more about your hobby. You'll check the do not have. If the items are made in the manner of the period, linings of your sport coats, and the soles of your work shoes. quality will be a given.. .with the understanding that there were You'll pick up a cheap tool in the hardware store and wonder items made and issued that, on their face, do not appear to be how anyone could produce and sell such crap and still look the "best." themselves in the mirror in the morning. You'll sweat the details Starting in a hobby where there is a significant expense to at home and at work ...and as a result things that used to fall get in can seem to be a daunting task. Go slow, and buy the best through the cracks just don't anymore. You save your money to you can afford. I promise you purchasing only quality replicas buy the best, and as a result you take care of your possessions will pay off in the long run.. .long after the original price is better. forgotten. Why? Two big reasons. It pays off in personal You will have joined the hundreds of men and women before satisfaction in the seriousness and detail you devote to a quality you who respect their historical ancestors too much than to impression (you are "doing it right") and it provides you with "cheap out" with a bad shirt or a crimped cup. an automatic measure of credibility among fellow reenactors Good luck ... and welcome to the ranks! who don't know you. You will stand out from less than correct Mr. Braun impressions.. .and a practiced eye will pick you out immediately What makes a tin cup authentic? Over the past few months I have been involved in doing visible on period tinware. Handles examined have either been research on tinware, specifically tin cups. My interest in trying "C" shape or "tear drop" shape (FIG 2). to create a tin cup stemmed from a question I was asked by one The rims of the cups are finished with a wire rolled top, or 1 of our new recruits. We were discussing equipment and sutlers' in one case a folded top that was placed over the rough rim and lists when we came to the subject of tinware. I recommended separately soldered, but this is the only example so far found of 1 two sources for authentically reproduced cups recommended by this type of rim construction. In general, modern reproductions other progressivelhard-core groups. He then asked, "Why? What suffer from being too perfect. In all of the cups I have examined, makes these cups authentic?" told him I had a general idea of solder beads are not uniform and slight hammer strokes around what a cup should look like based on the images I had seen, but the bottom are noticeable (the difference between a handcrafted beyond that I had not really taken the time to investigate. Well, cup and industrially produced cup). after seven months of purchasing original items, researching Specific styles and differences are apparent in comparing books, traveling to several museums and reproducing tin cups two cups commonly carried in the war-the civilian cup, and with the help of my friend and co-researcher Phillip Meadows, what is called amongst collectors, the issue cup. Civilian cups I have come to two conclusions. All authentic civil war tin cu are generally smaller than what many reenactors use. Civilian have some general similarities and it is harder to produce ; cups seem to vary in size from 2'12 inches high by 3lIs inches in accurate tin cup than it looks. diameter to larger 33/~inches high by 3'12 inches in diameter. The one very noticeable difference between a civilian cup and an issue cup is the body seam. The body of the civilian cup is soldered with a simple lap seam (FIG 3) as compared to issue cups and tin cans that have a folded seam (FIG 4) [2] FIG I. Tin Cups in, Collectio In my collection I have three authentic tin cups, one tin can and one tin pitcher. I have compared my original tinware with the tinware collections in the Tennessee State Museum, Gettysburg National Battlefield Park, Antietam National Battlefield Park, The Civil War Medical Museum and countless antique shops and books. In general all period tinware has the following key Characteristics. The tin cup or more properly called coffeeor tin "dipper" [I] has a flat bbttom B FIG^).- FIG 3. Lap Seam. I .* FIG 2. Handle Shapes. - - The bottom has a '14 to a '1s inch uniformed lip and is soldered directly to the bottom of the cup (no crimped bottom- FIG 4. Folded Seam. like a modern Campbell'sm soup can). The solder bead is readily THE WATCHDOG. 10 - - - As mentioned above, handles come in two styles: the "C" shape and the "tear drop" shape. All of the civilian cups I have examined have their handles soldered directly to the body of the cup over the seam with no wire or tinner's rivets. The solder job here is noticeably sloppy as compared to the other solder seams (FIG 5 and FIG 6). FIG 7. On issue cups we find a few different characteristics. Besides the difference of the folded seam, issue cups are generally larger a in size. The one I have in my collection is 3'18 inches in high by FIG 5. Solder Application. four inches in diameter (FIG 8). [3] Larger sizes were also available and averaged 4'12 inches high by 4'12 inches in diameter to four inches high by four inches in diameter. FIG 6. Solder Application. FIG 8. Cup in Author's Collection. This seems to have been done because the solder for the handles would have to drop on the handle of the cup to prevent the The larger cups seem to have been produced earlier in the heating of the entire cup that can (and usually does) cause the war, [4] but I have no concrete evidence other than the fact that body seam to separate. Civilian cups use thinner material than the larger cups can still be found in museums and relic stores, issue cups and tin cans. All of the cups examined measured but are noticeably less common (as seen in their purchase price). between 0.012 and 0.016 inches. In modem terminology we Another difference is the gauge of the metal.