[Chad Arnow]

Does anyone know of good places that sell rubbings of monumental brasses that can be framed and hung on a wall?

Thanks!

[Jonathon Janusz]

If you haven't been here before, maybe these folks can help:

http://www.mbs-brasses.co.uk/

They have a contact stateside for making payments for society dues, surprisingly, about 45 minutes from my house.

[Chad Arnow]

[Tom Carr]

I found a fellow a couple of miles from me that has a load of them. I made a deal for a couple and Im supposed to check back with him in a week to see if he has made a list of what he has. I scored a rubbing of Robert De Bures, cosidered by many to be the finest of the military brasses and one of the oldest to boot. Its 7 ft tall and I have to fix a couple of small places that arent on the figure proper. Here is a pic of him next to a sword I engraved recently. I believe the De Bures brass was laid down in 1308. I also got a 15th century rubbing of Robert Le Strange that is hanging next to me. The figure is about 40in tall.

[Tom Carr]

The Le Strange rubbing.

[Chad Arnow]

I finally found some sources.

1) http://www.javianinbrass.com/ These people are really nice and sell on Ebay, too. I have three miniature brasses on their way as we speak. They have a pretty good selection.

2) http://www.wachsbrc.com/index.php The person who answered my emails was very helpful. I ended up going with Javian's smaller versions, though, since they fit the wall and budget much better.

[Chad Arnow]

Here are the ones I have on order. The figures themselves are about 17 inches high by 5 or so wide, plus 2-3 inches of blank paper all around.

John D'Abernon (1277)


William de Setvans (1306)


William Fitzralph (1323)


The color is a little uneven in the pictures, but I've been told that they are actually an even gold throughout.

[Chad Arnow]

Perhaps I'm the only one interested in this stuff, but here's a scan of one of the brass rubbings I received from http://www.javianinbrass.com/ 's Ebay auctions. I'm really happy with the quality, considering their low price of $12 USD for decent sized rubbings.

The scan loses some detail and makes the gold color look slightly uneven.

[Chad Arnow]

For anyone interested, here is the final result. These three brass rubbings are from http://www.javianinbrass.com/ and are made from scaled-down reproductions of the original brasses. The figures are 18" high.

[Dan Dickinson]

Looks great,Chad, thanks for sharing !

[Steve Maly]

Chad,

Nice arrangement. I've seen the large ones displayed individually, but I like the look of several smaller ones framed together!

[Chad Arnow]

Dan and Steve,
Thanks for the kind words. I love how it turned out. My wife likes it, too, which is always good. It works well in our living room.

I almost went with two figures, about 36 inches tall each, framed separately. this was cheaper and looks better, too, I think. If anyone is looking to buy small rubbings, I recommend Javian. The quality was much better than I expected for the cost, and the scaled-down repro brasses they work from have a lot of detail and still retain imperfections from the originals.

[Del Penny]

I went to school in the UK as an exchange student in 1973. I took a train every weekend out into the country to make brass rubbings. I have a collection of over 100 rubbings, from 1'x3' up to 8'x12', most are gold heelball on black paper but several are black on white paper. Would like to get some of them out of the tubes in which they have been stored all these years and into the hands of people that would enjoy them. Email me if interested.

[Chad Arnow]