We Buy
Brass and Copper Antiques
Boer War trench art, Cape Copper Company brassware, De Klerk coppersmithing and colonial-era metalware.
What Makes Brass and Copper Antiques Collectible
Brass and copper have played a distinctive role in South African material culture, from indigenous and Cape Colonial metalwork through the mining booms of the Northern Cape and Witwatersrand to the domestic wares of British settler households. Because the country sat at the crossroads of Dutch, British, Indian and African trade networks, surviving pieces reflect an unusually wide range of origins and uses. We prize items with clear provenance to specific companies, campaigns or craftsmen, as well as pieces showing the patina, hand-hammering and construction techniques typical of pre-industrial or early industrial manufacture.
Makers & Items We Buy
Boer War era brass shell casings and household utensils
The Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) was the first major conflict to make extensive use of breech-loaded artillery, and it is from this war that brass shell and cartridge casings first became widely available as raw material for what collectors call "trench art." Soldiers and, later, souvenir makers etched casings with regimental crests, place names and dates such as "1900, South Africa," or reworked them into vases, ashtrays, gongs and other household items. Beyond shell casings, prisoners of war held on St Helena, Ceylon and Bermuda produced related handcrafted items, broadening the range of Boer War militaria available today. Genuine, well-documented examples with legible engraving, regimental markings or a traceable battle association are the most sought after; later reproductions are common and should be checked against known casing types and manufacturer stamps for authenticity.
Cape Copper Company Brassware
The Cape Copper Company (formally the Cape Copper Mining Company) was one of the principal firms working the copper deposits of Namaqualand in the Northern Cape, an area first prospected by the Dutch as early as 1685 and commercially developed from 1852. The company built the Namaqualand Railway between 1869 and 1876 to carry ore from mining towns such as Okiep, Concordia and Nababeep to the port of Port Nolloth, and it operated until production ceased around 1919. Items associated with the company range from workshop and mine-issue brass fittings, tags, tools and lamps to decorative or presentation pieces made from company-sourced copper and brass in the mining towns it built. Because the Cape Copper Company was ultimately absorbed into the O'okiep Copper Company in the late 1930s, surviving marked pieces are relatively scarce and valued for their direct link to one of South Africa's earliest industrial mining ventures.
De Klerk Brassware
De Klerk's Coppersmith was a genuine, long-running Johannesburg workshop founded in the late 1890s in Doornfontein by Hendrik Eliza de Klerk, and continued across four generations of the family. The workshop, a declared Provincial Heritage Site, hand-produced copper and brass domestic ware including kettles, bed warmers, jugs, pitchers and decorative bowls, many stamped "De Klerk Original" on the base or interior. Pieces are typically heavy-gauge and hand-hammered, showing the visible planishing marks and soldered seams characteristic of traditional coppersmithing rather than machine spinning. As one of the last operating traditional coppersmiths in South Africa, De Klerk ware is collected both for its domestic charm and for its connection to a documented, historically significant local craft tradition.
Dutch Colonial brassware (1700s-1800s)
Brass and copper wares reached the Cape from the earliest years of Dutch East India Company (VOC) settlement after 1652, arriving both as trade goods carried by VOC vessels restocking at the Cape en route to the East, and as household items brought or ordered by settler families. Typical surviving forms from this period include candlesticks, tobacco boxes, warming pans, cooking vessels, and fittings for furniture and Cape Dutch homesteads, generally following Dutch and Low Countries forms of the period. As the free burgher population grew through the 18th century and after the Cape passed to British control in the early 1800s, brassware continued to be imported and used alongside locally repaired or adapted pieces. Because genuinely dated Cape Dutch-era brass is rare and heavily collected, most surviving pieces are valued on stylistic and constructional grounds — hand-forming, wear patterns, period-appropriate fittings — rather than on maker's marks.
Early 20th Century Mining Lamps & Safety Lanterns
South Africa's Witwatersrand goldfields, discovered in 1886, and its older Northern Cape copper and diamond workings created strong demand for portable mine lighting, drawing on lamp technology developed internationally from Sir Humphry Davy's 1815 flame safety lamp onward. Flame safety lamps, with their gauze-enclosed wicks designed to prevent naked flames igniting explosive gas, and later carbide (acetylene) lamps worn on the belt or helmet, were standard issue for miners and shift bosses through the early 20th century, supplied by British and European manufacturers such as the Wolf Safety Lamp Company. Lamps were typically locked and issued at the mine entrance and often stamped with the mine or mining company's name and a lamp number for accountability. We value examples with legible South African mine markings, complete locking mechanisms and original maker's plates, since these link an otherwise generic industrial object to a specific mine and period of the country's mining boom.
Indian & Middle Eastern Imported Brassware
South Africa's brass trade goods drew heavily on established Indian and Middle Eastern manufacturing centres, most notably Moradabad in northern India, whose brass industry dates to the late Mughal period and which historically exported wares to Iran, Turkey and the wider Middle East as well as to British colonial markets. Indian brassware reached South Africa both through colonial-era trade networks and through the large Indian community established in Natal from 1860 onward, while Middle Eastern brass trays, coffee pots, incense burners and lamps arrived via broader Islamic and Cape Malay trading connections. Typical forms include engraved trays, dishes, ewers, planters and pierced lanterns, often decorated with dense floral, geometric or calligraphic patterning distinct from European brassware of the same era. Such pieces are collected for their intricate hand-engraved or repoussé decoration and as evidence of South Africa's long-standing trade and migration links with South and West Asia.
Victorian & Edwardian Brass Kettles & Urns
Brass kettles and urns of the Victorian (1837-1901) and Edwardian (1901-1910) periods were brought to South Africa in large numbers by British settlers, administrators and traders, reflecting the country's status as part of the British Empire through this era. Common forms include spirit kettles on stands with burners, tea urns with tap fittings for large households or institutions, and jardinieres or planters, often featuring turned wooden handles, ball or paw feet, and repoussé or engraved decoration in period styles ranging from restrained Victorian classicism to Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. Well-regarded English manufacturers of the period, such as Benham & Froud and designers like Christopher Dresser, produced pieces that are still actively collected today. In the South African context, such kettles and urns are valued both as decorative antiques in their own right and as tangible domestic relics of colonial-era settler households.
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