Another legitimate Histo Presto Content question for the Pinheads to ignore:
The 1892 Town Hall in Summit NJ was built with a salmon-colored iron spot brick facade (with limestone trim), and exposed common brick side and rear walls. The roof was gray Penna slate with terra cotta tile ridge and hip capping, and a painted sheet iron finial on a little square bell-cast roof. If I can figure out how to scan an old photo of it for you, I will.
When the building was restored (more or less) about 5 years ago, there was no money for the ridge tile, which was removed sometime between 1948-75. We are in the process of replacing the deteriorated original sheet-iron finial with a new one made from LCC or TCSS one. We will have a paint analysis done on the original finial, but it may well not turn anything up. we would like to replace the ridge and hip capping, and this is where the big question comes in
There is a c. 1890's brownstone-and-red brick house in Summit, with its original slate roof and what I assume to be the original red-brick colored terra cotta ridge and tile cap.
Since we know that there was red-brick colored TC hip and ridge cap here in Summit, is there any reason to believe that TC ridge and hip capping was NOT available in a variety of colors in The Olden Days? COULD it have been fabricated to match the color of the salmon brick at the facade, or was it only available in plain old red-brick color?
We have B&W photos from 1892-1948 which show the tile and the finial (which has a stylized flame atop a pagoda-like device which is square in plan). There is nothing in the photos, and I don't believe there is any written documentation that would give any indication one way or the other about the colors of the tile and finial, but the grays of the tile and finial in the photos SEEM to be close in "color."
It doesn't make sense to me to have the hip and ridge tile (and I suppose the finial) NOT match the facade brick, but I am concerned that it will cost a fortune to get 250 LF of custom-colored hip and ridge tile made, or to save a fortune and use standard red-brick colored tile if it's likely that a custom color was used.
I would be most grateful for guidance from anybody who may have seen this sort of combination. or not.
Ralph