Endrei Walter szerk.: Textilipari Múzeum Évkönyve 8. 1995 (Budapest, 1995)

dr. Márta Járó: Manufacturing technique of gold threads and their imitations on museum textiles - chronology of the preparation of metal threads. Results of the scientific investigations

The special literature studied by me, dealing with the history of textiles resp. with textiles prepared with metal threads does not mention the application of gold-imitation alloys as the tombak (where copper is alloyed with maximum 20% zinc) or the brass (copper with a zinc content of 20-40%) as base material of metal threads. The earliest written source known by me, which mentions the use of brass as metal thread is Kriinitz's "Oekonomische Encyclopédie", published for the first time in the second half of the 18th century [59]. I did not find scientific investigation data in foreign publications, which would make possible the comparison. Among archeological findings from Hungary, dated to the 15-17th centuries, it was possible to identify metal threads of tombak, resp. of brass [57, 65]. The textile historical works do not mention the brass coated copper threads neither. Schreier and Bresee, in their article dealing with metal threads describe the preparation method of the so called cementated copper wire, based on the patent of Pinchbeck, issued in 1732. In course of this procedure, the copper wire is treated in zinc vapor, so that its surface should look like gold, because of the developing brass-layer [60]. The already mentioned encyclopedia of Kriinitz calls the metal threads prepared of cementated copper wire "gold threads of Lyon" [61] and describes a type of tombak as Pinchbeck alloy, which got its name of an English artist [62]. Data resulting from examinations, which would make the comparison possible, were not avaible for me, even in this case. In course of my investigations, I found copper strip and wire coated, resp. plated with brass on two textiles dated to the 18th resp. to the 19th century. In one of these cases very probably cementated copper was used. The other sample, however, had been prepared by flattening a copper wire which had been plated with brass [63] (Fig. 6).