Original Item: One of a Kind. A “Tygg” is a two handled substantial drinking vessel used in the Royal Navy for group toasts, probably just the officers, that was handed around the group involved. This particular example stands 6″ tall and 6″ wide at its widest point at the rim resembling a giant beaker with two applied “ear” handles for ease in passing. It is made from sheet copper with a brazed seam on the side, and the interior looks to have been “tinned” to prevent the copper from reacting with the contents.
It is tastefully engraved :-
GOOD MEN of the PHOEBE
The toaft shall be
God Blefs
KING GEORGE
Lord Nelfon
ENGLAND
&
the SHIP
H.M.S. PHOEBE was Launched at DEPTFORD on the Thames as a 5th Rate MAN-O-WAR of 36 guns in 1795. She Captured French Ship NEREIDE on December 20th 1797 and later attended the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 where she was held in a rearward position relaying signals to the fleet. After the battle she assisted in saving two of the PRIZE VESSELS, the Swiftsure (French) and the Bahama (Spanish) in the fearful gale that followed the night after the engagement. She successfully escorted them both to Gibraltar.
H.M.S. PHOEBE served throughout the Napoleonic Wars and the 1812 War with the United States. She was taken out of service in 1820 and finally broken up in 1841.
TYGG Drinking vessels are very rare and this one provides so much opportunity for further research.