Elkington & Company was a pioneer in the field of electroplating metals in Britain in the early to mid 1800s. Two cousins, George and Henry, patented a process, which they licensed to metalsmiths throughout the world. Their company, located in Birmingham, turned out everything from waistcoat buttons to full-sized bronze statues, with lots of silver trays, tea sets, and candelabra in between. The company survived the founders by almost a century, but closed down in the 1960s.

A duck press, as mentioned elsewhere on these pages, is a fairly uncommon device for squeezing all the juices from a duck carcass in order to make a sauce.

Now, where can you find an Elkington duck press? Sadly, we are not well plugged into the world of antiques and auctions. We looked on eBay (a really pathetic source for cookbooks, by the way) and turned up nothing. We came across various Elkington pieces on antiques dealers' sites, and even a reference to a duck press that had been sold a couple of years ago. But we did not dig up an available Elkington duck press. Probably your best bet is to get in touch with an antiques buying service, which will have people scouring the world for your duck press, while we go back to cooking and writing, cooking and writing….