Abraham Darby kettle cauldron pot

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kimberasmith

New Member
Aug 21, 2021
2
0
57
United States
Hello, I am new here to your site. I am in the United States. I am wondering if any of you could help me with a question. I believe I have an Abraham Darby kettle/pot/cauldron from the 1700's when he invented coke-sand casting. I was going to sell it but after hours upon hours of exhausting research, I thought it best to reach out to others who might know better. I have seen the one in the Gorge Museum. This pot I have could be older. It had the definitive look of Darby and the 7 ears. Can anyone help? Thank you, Kimberly
 

C_Claycomb

Moderator staff
Mod
Oct 6, 2003
7,354
2,365
Bedfordshire
Hello Kimberly,
I am one of the moderators her. All new members' first few posts need to be approved before they appear on the open forum. Your post raised a few flags, we have had a lot of scammers trying to join lately which has made us a bit more suspicious than usual.

If you are asking for help identifying or aging your pot, you need to post pictures of it, either by uploading to another website and posting the link here, or by using Tapatalk from a smart phone and attaching photos directly. I would suggest trying this first https://postimages.org/.

The forum has strict rules on selling, so while it is relevant to why you want to know more about the pot you have, please do not mention selling again.

What makes you think your pot is older than the one in the museum? Have you reached out to the museum?

Good luck with your quest!

Chris
 

kimberasmith

New Member
Aug 21, 2021
2
0
57
United States
16303121867585928158086327962072.jpg
 
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British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
I'm far from an expert & echo the advice on seeking museum input. One thing that may help identify early Darby pots is that they were sectionally cast (cast in pieces and then joined together). This leaves very visible seams that you can see in my photograph below

Cauldron 5 by British Red, on Flickr
 

Erbswurst

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Mar 5, 2018
4,079
1,766
Berlin
I have no idea about cast iron pots.

But generally:
If you assume to own something that is very old and rare you should ask a museum that owns a similar collection. Here you have the specialists that can tell you about what you have there and normally they do it for free, because that's the usual way how they get the stuff.

If it comes out that you really own a item of high ideal value you can offer to gift or sell it to that museum. In this case you have the chance to give back something to the country that let you grow and protects you.

Or if the thing is old but not so incredibly rare, you know afterwards what you own and can think about selling it in an auction of a specialised house like Sotheby's. The amount of money that is realised in this way represents the current financial value.

(Not everything that's old has a high financial value though. Pieces of mass produced Roman amphorae for example have currently a for the common man surprisingly low financial value for example, as well as usual Byzantinic coins or whatever.)

In this case it surely will come into a well maintained private collection and probably will end sooner or later in a museum as well. That's in my opinion better than giving the Roman gold helmet to your children to play or starting to try to restore it yourself what surely would destroy the item.
 
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