Although the Journal has "Advanced" in its titled, I try not to limit the articles to advanced content and will typically include introduction articles in fine and decorative arts where there is a very narrow scope.
This weeks excerpt from the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies is by Ed Tuten, ISA CAPP. Ed discusses appraising American horse drawn carriages and sleighs. Ed discusses American carriages, their structure, design, trimming patterns and identification.
The Journal is published by the Foundation for Appraisal Education, and proceeds support the educational initiatives and scholarships of the foundation.
Ed Tuten writes
The American Carriage Industry was developed by hand fashioned products of skilled workmanship. Woodworkers, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, and painters and trimmers were all engaged in the creation of a carriage. Persons who owned carriages were successful merchants and planters and not the ordinary Americans in small villages, cities or farms. After the Revolution there was a greater interest in the development of a transportation system. Private investment developed turnpikes and toll roads. Cities such as Baltimore, New York, and Boston developed streets sometimes of cobblestone, but more likely dirt which were filled with dust when dry, mud when it rained, always with human and animal waste, garbage thrown from the windows of houses and places of business and which were formed from the cow paths that their citizens used to take their products to market. Most of the early vehicles were two wheelers, or carts and wagons which were involved in the service and movement of both passengers and freight.
Wheel construction was a complex affair and because the condition of the roads and the work that these carriages, carts and wagons would be required to do, the wheels’ construction and the gearing was an integral part of the carriages. Wheelwrights developed a feature called the “dish” ( the arrangement of the spokes into a shallow cone in relation to the wheels hub or center piece). The object of dishing a wheel was to enable the spokes taking the weight of the vehicle to remain at right angles to the surface of the ground. Dishing caused the top of the wheel to lean away from the sides of the vehicle. The out staves were added to the outside of the body and increased the carrying capacity of the vehicle. The axel arms dipped toward the ground and this also helped tip the top of the wheel from the side. William Grier writes, "Wheels are made with what is called a dish, spokes are inserted not at right angles, but at an inclination towards the axis of the center piece, so that if the interior end of the center piece is placed on the ground, the spokes being higher at the outside at their termination in the center piece, the wheel appear dished or hollow.” Wheels were “dished four inches in diameter of five feet. If the wheels were always on smooth and level ground the best way would be to make the spokes perpendicular to the center and axel; but as roads were generally uneven, one wheel often fell into a rut, when the other did not, then it bears much more than an equal share of the load; but when a dished wheel falls into a rut, the spokes become perpendicular in the rut, and therefore the greatest strength and the capacity to carry the weight is equal.” Dished wheels made carriages stand on a broader base, and less likely to overturn, they gave more room to the body and the ability to withstand side jolts of the carriage.
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