What Is A Horse Brass? (Revealed!)
I was watching a local parade with my family the other day, and there was a lot of horses involved in the pageantry over the course of the day.
One thing I heard people mention a lot was the ‘horse brass’ that was on show—it was all apparently very pretty and impressive.
The only problem was, I had no idea what a horse brass was!
When we got back, I decided to do some research and find out.
So, what is a horse brass?
A horse brass is a decorative brass plaque that decorates the harness and gear of a horse. they are usually for shire and parade horses, although their use has fallen out of popularity today. They have been used since ancient Roman times as a show of wealth or power.
So, a horse brass is almost like jewelry for a horse.
It decorates the horse’s gear, usually ahead of it being shown in a parade or procession.
They’ve served many purposes over the years, but let’s try and nail down what exactly they were for—among other things.
What is the purpose of a horse brass?
They have had many purposes over the years.
As you can imagine, there are many reasons why someone might wish to embellish or decorate a horse.
You only have to look to the tradition’s classical roots to understand why the practice originated.
Horse harnesses in ancient Rome were often decorated with brasses cut in the shape of a disc or crescent.
For the rich and powerful who could afford to have these things made, displaying them was a sign of that.
Whether to increase social status or simply show off.
Similar things were seen in medieval England, although both of these examples do differ in some key ways from the horse brasses as they emerged in the 19th century.
Today, they are essentially event markers.
Rather than individuals having their own brasses, certain yearly parades may have sets of brasses which mark different members of the parade.
They are ceremonial garb, more than anything else.
Again, we are decorating our horses for the sake of pageantry.
Is horse brass valuable?
There is typically nothing inherently valuable about the material itself.
It’s just brass, after all, so modern horse brass with no collector’s value would not be worth an especially large amount of money.
That said, there are many collectors around the world, and some of the pieces of horse brass are exceedingly rare and hard to find.
For collectors, this makes them very valuable.
For the right piece and the right buyer, they could be very valuable.
So, this is value in the same sense that most collectible things are.
They are worth as much as anyone is willing to pay for them.
They were not always made with brass, and in some cases you may find pieces that are so loaded with precious metals they are valuable in themselves.
More commonly, though, they will be valuable as a collector’s item.
Why do pubs have horse brass?
There’s not necessarily a straight answer to this, beyond the simple connection of pubs in the UK to virtually everything else.
Pubs have close connections with the towns they reside in, and horses can be a very large part of the traditions of British towns.
Pubs very often display collectibles of local importance, such as items belonging to celebrities who were born there.
The horse brass is no different.
Often, horse brass will be donated to pubs by private owners, for the sake of preserving it for posterity.
So, pubs just like to maintain a strong connection to the towns they come from.
Horse brass can be one of the central rituals and ceremonies of a small, tight-knit town.
How can you tell if a horse brass is real?
The simple answer is that it really depends what you’re looking for.
As I said, there are many varieties of horse brass, and you may find one that is ‘real’ but not really valuable as many of them were made, or something like that.
The simplest way to tell if an early brass is genuine is looking for the hammer marks on the back.
They are made by hammering them into shape, so you should always be able to see the marks.
These are extremely rare, however, and so prized by collectors you’re unlikely to find it in a place where anyone is unsure of its authenticity.
Other than that, the fact is that this knowledge is somewhat esoteric.
Many people who can recognize a genuine brass take many years of experience to be able to do so, and there usually isn’t much of a substitute for that.
Your best bet if you have a brass, you are unsure of the authenticity of, find a local appraiser who can tell you whether or not it’s real.
There should be someone nearby who works with these things.
So, horse brass is really just what it sounds like.
It’s brass that a horse wears.
Though they have fallen out of popularity in the last couple of centuries, they are still used in many places today, and indeed have seen a revival in popularity.
There is always the need for showmanship and pageantry, and for as long as we’ve been using and riding horses, we’ve been using them to display signs of our wealth and power.
That’s really what horse brass comes down to!