Pewter of the Bronze Age in the Near East. The earliest piece of pewter found is from an Egyptian tomb from 1450 BC. The constituents of pewter were first controlled in the 12th century by town guilds in France. By the 15th century, the Worshipful Company of Pewterers controlled pewter constituents in England. This company originally had two grades of pewter, but in the 16th century a third grade was added. The first type, known as "fine metal", was used for tableware. It consisted of tin with as much copper as it could absorb, which is about 1%. The second type,
Mullion Cove the mineral talc was extracted from soapstone, known then as soaprock. Remains of the mineral are still visible in the form of veins of a white or light-coloured mineral occasionally up to thick, running at an angle of 45° along the serpentine cliff face. This mineral was extracted from a number of sites along the west coast of the Lizard peninsula for about 80 years. It was used by the earliest English soft paste porcelain factories to produce thousands of highly decorated pieces (tea and coffee pots, dinner services, tableware, vases etc.) of a very high standard which became fashionable