RE: [lace] RE: Carbon dating of lace

[Lorelei Halley]

Anna
Very useful comment.
Lorelei

-Original Message-
From: Anna Binnie [mailto:l...@binnie.id.au] 
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2017 6:30 PM
To: Lorelei Halley ; 'Laurie Waters'
; 'Nancy Neff' ;
jeria...@aol.com; 'Arachne' 
Subject: Re: [lace] RE: Carbon dating of lace


I should add a few amendments to this.
There are lots of factors that can cause measurements in dating with an
error margin of upto 100 years and sometimes even more, these factors can
include the fact that the lace could have been made from old thread, ie some
one made lace with a thread they found at home that may be decades old. The
dating can only be as accurate as the age of the thread not when it was
made. Then other factors come into play, if the lace was washed or poorly
stored in its life it could accumulate contaminants some of which could be
carbon based and organic in nature. This could add to the uncertainty.

Since bobbin lace has only been around since late 1400's at the earliest
pattern books date to the early 1500's therefore bobbin lace was around
before then, the oldest bobbin laces would be 500 -600 years old. The dating
uncertainties could give you a date with a very large margin.

However if you are looking at a piece of textile with embroidery such as
needle lace or a piece of sprang that has a history to the Ancient Greeks
then carbon dating can be quite accurate in the sense that it can tell you
whether it is 1000 or 2000 years old or more recent. This form of dating can
determine if a cloth is a forgery or the real deal.

Carbon dating is based on a statistical analysis of the ratio of carbon
14 to carbon 12. As such it can be quite accurate but it won't be able to
tell you with any certainty if the Lace is 100 years old or 200 years old.
That is why I mentioned that lace is in the historic period and you would be
better to date the lace using type, style and thread composition.

Anna in Sydney where it has just started to rain


On 14/2/17 9:45 am, Anna Binnie wrote:
> The most reliable carbon dating is up to about 15,000 years. That is 
> about 3 half lives (carbon 14 half life is 5,740 years with an error 
> of
> 30 years). So for lace it should be reasonably accurate.
>

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Re: [lace] RE: Carbon dating of lace

[Anna Binnie]

I should add a few amendments to this.
There are lots of factors that can cause measurements in dating with an 
error margin of upto 100 years and sometimes even more, these factors 
can include the fact that the lace could have been made from old thread, 
ie some one made lace with a thread they found at home that may be 
decades old. The dating can only be as accurate as the age of the thread 
not when it was made. Then other factors come into play, if the lace was 
washed or poorly stored in its life it could accumulate contaminants 
some of which could be carbon based and organic in nature. This could 
add to the uncertainty.


Since bobbin lace has only been around since late 1400's at the earliest 
pattern books date to the early 1500's therefore bobbin lace was around 
before then, the oldest bobbin laces would be 500 -600 years old. The 
dating uncertainties could give you a date with a very large margin.


However if you are looking at a piece of textile with embroidery such as 
needle lace or a piece of sprang that has a history to the Ancient 
Greeks then carbon dating can be quite accurate in the sense that it can 
tell you whether it is 1000 or 2000 years old or more recent. This form 
of dating can determine if a cloth is a forgery or the real deal.


Carbon dating is based on a statistical analysis of the ratio of carbon 
14 to carbon 12. As such it can be quite accurate but it won't be able 
to tell you with any certainty if the Lace is 100 years old or 200 years 
old. That is why I mentioned that lace is in the historic period and you 
would be better to date the lace using type, style and thread composition.


Anna in Sydney where it has just started to rain


On 14/2/17 9:45 am, Anna Binnie wrote:

The most reliable carbon dating is up to about 15,000 years. That is
about 3 half lives (carbon 14 half life is 5,740 years with an error of
30 years). So for lace it should be reasonably accurate.



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RE: [lace] RE: Carbon dating of lace

[Lorelei Halley]

Anna
Thanks!
Lorelei

-Original Message-
From: Anna Binnie [mailto:l...@binnie.id.au] 
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2017 4:45 PM
To: Lorelei Halley ; 'Laurie Waters'
; 'Nancy Neff' ;
jeria...@aol.com; 'Arachne' 
Subject: Re: [lace] RE: Carbon dating of lace

The most reliable carbon dating is up to about 15,000 years. That is about 3
half lives (carbon 14 half life is 5,740 years with an error of
30 years). So for lace it should be reasonably accurate.

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Re: [lace] Lace ID reference books

[Malvary Cole]

Someone on Facebook just mentioned Marian Powys.  I didn't think I knew 
anything about her, so checked on google.  She has an item on the 
professor's site 'A Further Legacy Three Personal Lace Notebooks of Marian 
Powys' https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/articles/nb85_lc2.pdf


She shows at least one example of Mechlin - don't know if this is of 
interest to those discussing the subject of how to identify Mechlin.


Malvary in Ottawa where we had 28cm of snow yesterday and are looking 
forward to another dump of 10-20 cm between Tuesday afternoon and Thursday 
morning.  I think I'll have to start putting it in the bath so I can get out 
of my driveway


-Original Message- 
From: devonth...@gmail.com

Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 3:33 PM
To: 'Arachne reply'
Subject: [lace] Lace ID reference books

In relation to what Alex was saying about Mechlin and what it meant in the
18th century, I think that Santina Levey says fairly early in her book that
most of the terms we use now were coined by lace dealers in the late 19th 
and
early 20th century, and would be unrecognizable to people in the era when 
the

lace was made.
If memory serves, a particularly egregious example was calling a lace Binche
because a piece resembling it had been found on a carnival costume in 
Binche,

although the lace was never made there. Another example is dubbing things
Cluny after a piece found in the Cluny museum in Paris.
But, of course, it is the language being  used in the late 19th and early 
20th

century by dealers and auctioneers that has found its way into the catalogue
system.
I have been consulting a number of books. Levey, of course, Toomer, Antique
Laces, Identifying types and Techniques, Gwynne’s the Illustrated 
Dictionary

of Lace, Kurella’s Guide to Lace and Linens, and Pat Earnshaw’s three
books, the Dictionary of Lace, the Identification of Lace and Bobbin and
Needle laces Identification and Care. Interestingly, Pat Earnshaw’s books
are not necessarily consistent. But, that serves as a powerful reminder that
whenever you write something and publish it, you immediately find out  you
were wrong about something.
I also have a dictionary  by J. Coene called Kantlexicon. In addition, I 
have

my vast library of books on individual laces. One thing that has been a
pleasant surprise is that it is sometimes quite easy to search the older 
books

on google books using a word search.
Does anyone have other suggestions for good ID books?
Devon


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Re: [lace] Lace ID reference books

[Malvary Cole]

Mea culpa, I forgot to trim the message before I sent my reply moments ago.

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Re: [lace] RE: Carbon dating of lace

[Anna Binnie]

The most reliable carbon dating is up to about 15,000 years. That is 
about 3 half lives (carbon 14 half life is 5,740 years with an error of 
30 years). So for lace it should be reasonably accurate.


Laurie why did anyone want to carbon date lace. I'm assuming it is 
needle lace or sprang. Bobbin lace falls into the historic period with 
lots of documentary evidence available.


Anna from a Sydney where the heat wave has passed for a while at least.



Very interesting. And you would know. What date range do you think carbon
dating works best for?


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Re: [lace] 150-year old wedding dress

[Angel]

What a wonderful story and such a beautiful dress. (And a very beautiful couple)

Cearbhael

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 12, 2017, at 5:29 AM, Jane  wrote:
> 
> For those that might have missed it - its not exactly headline news - here is 
> a story for you to enjoy . or breathe a sigh of relief over.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-38944387
> 
> 

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Re: [lace] 150 year old wedding dress

[Sue Duckles]

I had heard that. Her parents went and did the verification of the dress. 
Hopefully it will arrive with them today.

Sue in e yorks

Sent from my iPhone

> On 13 Feb 2017, at 15:04, Sue Harvey  wrote:
> 
> Don't know if you have heard but the dress has been found in the shop 
> crumpled up in a corner.
> 
> Sue Harvey
> Norfolk UK 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> 
> 
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[lace] Saxony Lace/Bohemia?

[devonthein]

Fellow spiders,
So how about this? My reading indicates that there is a part of Saxony that is
in Bohemia. I spent a fair amount of time following this lead on Bohemia until
the penny dropped and I looked it up in our own incomparable data base. Darned
if I didn’t get this piece
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/218647?sortBy=Relevancewh
ere=Bohemiawhat=Bobbin+lace%7cLaceft=*offset=0rpp=20
pos=2   identified as 20th century Bohemian lace. It looks just like the piece
that was identified as Saxony.
Devon

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Re: [lace] 150 year old wedding dress

[Sue Harvey]

Don't know if you have heard but the dress has been found in the shop crumpled 
up in a corner.

Sue Harvey
Norfolk UK 
Sent from my iPad

> 

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[lace] 150 year old wedding dress

[Shirley MEIER]

This story was on Australian TV too.
Shirley in Corio Oz.

shirl200...@gmail.com

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Re: [lace] 150-year old wedding dress

[Jean Nathan]

The sequestrators are only supposed to take assets of the company that went
bankrupt, i.e. the items that belonged to the company. Any items in the shop
that were there to be dry cleaned weren't assets of the company as they
belonged to the people who had taken them there to be dry cleaned.


But I suppose they would have taken everything and then decided which items
belonged to the business and which didn't. Leaving the wedding dress behind
must mean that someone thought it was rubbish. Wonder if they'd have done the
same if it was a Ming vase. Wonder how many items of value (not only monetary
value) have been lost permanently in circumstances like this.


The owner is obviously being very wise now in intending to take it to a
cleaner who specialises in lace items.


Jean Nathan in Poole, Dorset, UK

Subject: Re: [lace] 150-year old wedding dress

The thing about this story is that the dress was made by a few times gt
grandmother for her wedding.  It's been worn by many brides since then and was
given to the bride by her grandmother for the big day.  The dry cleaners had a
'By Royal Appointment', and so were deemed to be a good dry cleaners.  However
they went bankrupt and all 'assets' were seized... including all the clothing
in the place!  When they found out they tried to get the dress back only to be
told it couldn't be found! Other brides were/are in similar situations.  This
is why they appealed to social media.

Let's hope they are reunited with the dress soon.  It was taken away by the
sequestrators, and it's hoped it will be reunited with its owners permanently
next week.

Sue in East Yorkshire where it's hardly stopped raining for 4 days!!

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