Brewer's: Pinchbeck

So called from Christopher Pinchbeck, a musical-clock maker, of Fleet Street. (Died 1732.) The word is used for Brummagem gold; and the metal is a compound of copper, zinc, and tin.

“Where, in these pinchbeck days, can we hope to find the old agricultural virtue in all its purity?” —AnthonyTrollope: Framley Personace.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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