Topic: is it a "P" gone wrong?

[RAY]

just got this perthshire today, if it's ment to be a P cane why did they use the cane if it's a bad one?

click image for larger photo

[KevinH]

Exactly the same cane, with the same style "P" and same colour and form of the surrounding ring and "star", is seen in an illustration for a PP1 weight in the book, The Complete Guide to Perthshire Paperweights, p77. Also, a very similar cane with the same type of "P", but in different colours, is shown on p159 as one of the several examples of signature cane.

It seems to me that the whole cane in Ray's weight has suffered some distortion which has possibly also caused the "P" to be more "out of line" than in other examples, although even the similar ones in the book look something like a tree rather than a "P".

Perhaps the very strict quality control usually applied to the weights was focussed more on the paettern and setting being "perfect" as opposed to a slight (or even severe) distortion of the signature cane? Or maybe the really strict quality controller was on holiday? Or how about a weight being set aside for destruction that made it through the sales doors instead - it has happened before!

[RAY]

funny i forgot i had that book , just been looking on page 159, if you look at the cane's with the dates, the bottom middle 1990 look at the 9's and some are like the one in my weight, could of they put a 9 in instead of a P by mistake?

[KevinH]

Ray, almost anything (well, within reason) is possible. Since a "P" and a "9" in similar fonts are the same thing when reversed, it is also feasible that they used the same cane for both for some of the weights by simply inverting the cane :!: But has anyone ever seen a "P" where a "9" should be, or a "9" for a "P" ... ?

Whatever they did, they certainly had variations of both "P" and "9" and either could have been distorted slightly to end up like yours.