Topic: MILLEFIORI INK BOTTLE

[josordoni]

Can anyone help with the possible origin of this ink bottle?

I bought it thinking it might be Perthshire, but no sig canes anywhere, and I am starting to veer towards Murano - any ideas anyone?

the larger gallery with more views can be found here:

[johnphilip]

Hi Lynne Scottish i have the same but blue in the stopper mine has no sig cane,its in several of the books, i am having a senior moment i cant remember but i think its  Caithness i am sure one of our Ologists will be along soon to confirm.

[josordoni]

Thank you JP - just found it (thanks to GlassForum who are quick off the mark today!) on Frank's Scottish Glass site, it is a PP22 Perthshire, so I was right first time round!

[karelm]

Hi,
It does look very close to a PP22 but I have some reservations:
According to the Complete Guide to Perthshire Paperweights those made between 1973-1982 contain a centre cane and four concentric rings.  Those made after 1982 contain a centre P cane and five concentric rings.  So for yours to be 1982 or earlier it should have only four rings and from the pics it seems to have five rings, but without the P cane.  (OR am I seeing a reflection of the last row of canes and it has in fact got four rings???!)
I have one of the later ones and the green strands run through the stopper and dont stop halfway as those in your pic seems to do.  Anyone got an older one and care to have a look at the strands in the stopper?
Having said that it does look very similar to the PP22 and I would be surprised if it was not made at Perthshire!
Kind regards,
KarelM

[josordoni]

Thanks Karel, I have rechecked and it does indeed have 5 rows (not including the central cane) and the lines are shorter than the ones in Frank's pictures. 

But I guess that must just be the vagiaries of hand made items, and I suppose that there would have been some crossover of styles from one time to the next.  I can't seem to find any reports of copies of these bottles, so I am with you on the probability of Perthshire over anything else being most likely. 

[Frank]

I do have a 1980 catalogue image still to add, it has no centre P and 4 rings, lines in the stopper go down the full length.

[karelm]

Thanks for the info Frank.
I have had a look around and found the following completed auction:
270196213933: Centre P, 5 rings, incomplete strands in stopper
So it does seem that in some of these the strands in the stopper did not go all the way through. 
Could it be that the idea was that they go all the way but when, for some reason or other, they did not go all the way it wasn't seen as reason to reject?  Or maybe these were only sold at the factory, I recall hearing somewhere :huh: that less than perfect examples ended up in the factory shop???
Anycase I cannot believe that any of these are copies, just intresting that they seem to differ from the original design.
Jeers!
Karel
Update: Just seen Lynne's post on the Mars paperweight and I might remember wrongly that it was Caithness not Perthshire that sold seconds in the factory shop..OOPS!

[johnphilip]

There is one on ebay at the moment, nice colours and a P centre cane.No not mine.