Some Notes on the Preservation, Moulding and Casting of Seals

Abstract

The task of card-indexing the enormous number of seals scattered over the various groups and classes of documents in the Public Record Office, originally undertaken by Sir William St. John Hope, but interrupted by his death and by the war, was resumed in 1922 by Mr. R. C. Fowler. It was then decided to create a small special section within the Repairing Department, to deal with questions of packing, repairing, moulding and casting. When this work came to be started, it was discovered that the various processes had been hitherto regarded in this country rather as trade secrets; and although some works on the subject have been published abroad, though also various archivists have been most generous in placing their experience at my disposal, I found that some matters which interested us were still unexplained and that in practice we had to make almost every step the subject of more or less elaborate experiment. As we are now passing out of this experimental stage, and as many Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries and other persons in this country are possessors of seals and may be presumed to have some interest in the technical and mechanical processes involved in their preservation, it has seemed worth while to record the result of our modest inquiries in this place.