LOST INDUSTRIAL SECRET FOUND

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 52, 24 November 1928, Page 27

LOST INDUSTRIAL SECRET FOUND

“The secret formula for the manufacture of the famous Pontypool japan ware has been discovered after being lost for a period of over 60 years,” says the “Western Mail.” “Mr. W. H. V. .Bythway, a Pontypool solicitor, claims to have found it hidden away in an old desk at which he sat when a lad in his father’s office.

“The recipe is contained in an old diary kept by his father in 1864, and in addition he found an agreement, whereby a Mr. G. B. Jones, an old man engaged at the japan works, agreed to sell the secret to Mr. Bythway’s father.

“The discovery may have a farreaching effect upon the tin-plate industry. One of the many claims made for ‘Pontypool japan’ of tinplate is its wonderful endurance and the fact that, it is unaffected by the most intense heat.

“The formula has been missing since 1864. The process, ■which consists of a hard-glazed lacquer-work upon tinplate, was invented in 1660 by Thomas Allgood. Connoisseurs and antiquarians have long ago given up hope of ever finding the secret, which science has also failed to discover, despite many efforts to imitate the japan.”

“Vain efforts have been made to imitate the process,” says the “Birmingham Post.” “Now, thanks to this happy exhumation, ‘Poutypool japan’ may have a future as well as a past The news that the original formula has been discovered will probably be received with mixed feelings by owners of pieces of the old ware, the rarity of which has given it a value for collectors; but the hardhit tin-plate industry will be heartened by the promise cf any sort of restorative.

"Not often has industry a value for an obsolete method. Its supersession has usually been due to the discovery of a better way, economically, if not artistically. Manufacturers must be constantly bettering their methods of production, and would naturally think it paradoxical to progress by putting the dock hack. The value what is up-to-date as much as collectors value what is out-of-date.”