History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network
Memorabilia & Ephemera
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History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications |
Memorabilia & Ephemera |
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| 1858 Atlantic Cable Cane | ||
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This is a silver-mounted cane made by Tiffany & Company using pieces of the first Atlantic Cable. The L-shaped handle is 3 1/8" long and 2 7/8" high. It has silver ferrules at the end, at the shoulder, and above the shaft, forming the mounts for two pieces of the 1858 cable. The shaft is ebony with a long 3 1/2" brass ferrule at its tip. The overall length of the cane is 32". The silver is inscribed: "Tiffany and Co. to John Reid, Christmas 1859." There is a second inscription on the underside that reads: "To Judge Comley 1911", a second owner. In the book Tiffany's 150 Years by John Loring it is noted on page 43 that Charles Tiffany capitalized on the laying of the first ocean telegraph cable in 1858 by buying from Cyrus Field a large amount of the leftover cable, some of it even retrieved from the ocean floor. He sold souvenirs in pieces wrapped with an inscribed brass band and an accompanying letter of authenticity signed by Field. A gold engraved box containing a letter and a piece of the cable was presented to Field by Tiffany and is also illustrated in the book. These items are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, having been given to the museum by Field in 1892. |
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Research Material Needed The Atlantic Cable website is non-commercial, and its mission is to make available on line as much information as possible. You can help - if you have cable material, old or new, please contact me. Cable samples, instruments, documents, brochures, souvenir books, photographs, family stories, all are valuable to researchers and historians. If you have any cable-related items that you could photograph, copy, scan, loan, or sell, please email me: billb@ftldesign.com —Bill Burns, publisher and webmaster: Atlantic-Cable.com |
