were lent. The following extract from the catalogue is instructive as showing the fabricated histories nearly always attached to these English forgeries: "These two suits of armour, together with another hood of mail and portions of a third suit, were discovered enclosing the bones of knights who had been buried in their armour in Goring Church, Oxfordshire, by some workmen who, by accident, broke into a vault during repairs; and, at the time, one suit was sold for old iron to the village smith, who disposed of it to a gentleman residing in Sussex, who possesses a well-known collection of antiquities."
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Fig. 1531. Surface of a piece of steel used in a forged suit
Showing the artificial rusting
It is, however, in dealing with the types prevalent in armour of the XVth century—armour known comprehensively as "Gothic"—that the majority of blunders are generally made: for the present day forgeries of such armour are very ingenious and plausible. There are on the market some really clever continental forgeries of suits of armour not of a purely imaginary kind, such as we have been describing, but carefully made copies of famous harnesses, sufficiently altered to prevent their being recognized, and most ingeniously rusted to lend the necessary appearance of age. We remember the full suit of the fashion of about 1450, of comparatively modern Viennese make, suggested by the fine suit in the Royal Armoury of Vienna (see Vol. i, Fig. 212, page 177), with variations, which include a visored bascinet head-piece. We, however, are not prepared to regard it as a very convincing fake; as in our opinion it would not deceive the more astute armour collector of to-day. The skull-piece of the bascinet is made in two halves which have been brazed together; while the curious hairy rust on the exterior and the soft powdery rust in the interior, both proclaim the influence of acid in their production. We give an illustration of a portion of the surface of the armour—actual
