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Author Topic: English inkwell - Whitefriars?  (Read 3929 times)

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Offline tropdevin

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Re: English inkwell - Whitefriars?
« Reply #10 on: February 05, 2012, 08:02:29 AM »
Hi Peter

Presently in France, so I do not have my reference books etc, but it is worth bearing in mind that Bob Hall's book was written some time ago now, and that quite a lot of the information had been provided by Anne Anderson (whom he does not really credit), based on her work from years before. For example, there is relatively little about Richardson, whereas they made a great number of paperweights. And around a quarter of the Bacchus chapter weights are probably made by a different factory. It is the best book around on Old English paperweights, but there are many errors of omission and commission.

Incidentally, I wrote an article about my bottle in the PCC Newsletter a few years ago.

Another point that Roy may be able to respond to: any idea what proportion of cane designs from Whitefriars and from Walsh Walsh are represented in your wonderful box? Is it 1%, 5%, or maybe somewhat more?

Alan
Alan  (The Paperweight People  https://www.pwts.co.uk)

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Offline jamalpa36

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Re: English inkwell - Whitefriars?
« Reply #11 on: February 05, 2012, 10:03:12 AM »
Hi Alan

My Box contains 3100 Canes/Lampwork from 82 Makers, nearly 40 of which have ceased making.

There are 200 Whitefriars canes,6.5%

There are 405 Walsh-Walsh canes from Three different sources all around Stourbridge.One set came from a Walsh-Walsh worker,One set from a Stourbridge Auction and and the third set from an antique dealer near Stourbridge,but they all have some identical canes so I am convinced that they come from the Arculus/Walsh-Walsh stable if spread over a number of years, 13%.

Roy

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Offline tropdevin

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Re: English inkwell - Whitefriars?
« Reply #12 on: February 06, 2012, 09:14:19 AM »
Hi Roy. What I was trying to get at was what proportion of the canes Whitefriars ever made were represented in your magic box. But I think your answer helps.  A back of envelope calculation (which others may be able to improve) says that a single cane pull gives about enough millefiori pieces to make 4 or 5 paperweights. Now, how many paperweights did Whitefriars make? Using the same back of envelope, I estimate 30 years x 40 weeks x 25 paperweights per week on average, making 30,000 paperweights. So you need 6,000 canes, at least.....now some will appear very similar, but others get bundled into complex canes....so I estimate that there are between 5,000 and 10,000 different Whitefriars canes represented out there in paperweights.  The magic box  - as great an achievement as it is - is missing nearly every cane that they ever made! Consequently the absence of a cane from the Whitefriars set tells you very little about whether it is a Whitefriars cane. Incidentally, a reference book with 50 images per page would be feasible, at 100 to 200 pages.

The canes in the EIIR and Triplex weights are different from later canes, and contain a few strange designs such as double or even triple concentric loop centres. I wonder whether this is the Walsh Walsh influence, and whether a close study of these would show any continuity.....I feel an article coming on!

Alan


Alan  (The Paperweight People  https://www.pwts.co.uk)

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Offline jamalpa36

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Re: English inkwell - Whitefriars?
« Reply #13 on: February 06, 2012, 01:09:47 PM »
Hi Alan

You should have been in the Civil Service. The skill of guessing six or so numbers multiplying them together, dividing them by the number you first thought of and coming up with the final answer I think shows that statistics can prove anything. I wish I was good at sums!!

I am quite surprised how many of my 130 Whitefriars Items contain canes from my collection which according to your statistics should be most unlikely.

Should be .02%. This of course doesn't include Silhouettes which often contain hundreds of canes each.Is that in my favour or yours ??

I think I should stop here as I would still like my Whitefriars and Ysart Weights next meeting

Regards

Roy

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Offline KevinH

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Re: English inkwell - Whitefriars?
« Reply #14 on: February 06, 2012, 04:15:01 PM »
Hmmmm. Not sure about this "number of canes" thingy. I may have misunderstood, but ...

Roy's collection of canes show cane types. The number of Roy's types needs to be compared the total types that were produced. But the estimate of that number becomes rather more complex if we consider that a given cane type, with the same colouring, may have been pulled many times. Is there any evidence to say that this did not happen?
KevinH

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Offline tropdevin

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Re: English inkwell - Whitefriars?
« Reply #15 on: February 06, 2012, 04:31:19 PM »
Hi Kev.

I agree - it all gets more complicated if Whitefriars could manage to pull 'identical' canes. I don't know how easy that would be, as individual cane pulls can vary along their length (but I guess they only need to be good enough to look the same to us collectors). Any experts out there who can shed light on this? Or on the total number of paperweights that Whitefriars actually made?

Alan
Alan  (The Paperweight People  https://www.pwts.co.uk)

"There are two rules for ultimate success in life. Number 1: Never tell everything you know."

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Offline jamalpa36

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Re: English inkwell - Whitefriars?
« Reply #16 on: February 06, 2012, 04:58:52 PM »
Hi Alan

How many is a much more interesting question. I think that we credit Whitefriars and Ysart for that matter with far more Weights than were actually produced. I suppose Info from Perthshire would give us a better understanding and there must be more people around to supply the answers.

Once they had supplied the shops with a certain number of each design they surely stopped making until they needed to replace them,
 
Hence the issue quantity was nearly always higher than the actual made quantity.


Roy

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Offline petern00

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Re: English inkwell - Whitefriars?
« Reply #17 on: February 07, 2012, 09:47:04 PM »
One popular source* posits that back-of-the-envelope calculations give an approximation that's likely within an order of magnitude of 'the answer'. Ergo, from the earlier calculation - without querying any of the assumptions therein - we might expect to find between 500 and 100,000 Whitefriars canes out there?  I could go with that, although I'm not sure that I'm any the wiser. [*Wikipedia. BTW ..The term's origins are ascribed to the realm of physics.]

In relation to Roy's collection of Whitefriars canes. In the one realm of statistics that I have experience of - biomedical science; where the population under study is estimated as close to seven billion - a sample size of 200 is recognised as a valuable source of information, a basis for evidence that might support (or not) hypotheses and a useful contribution to the never-ending pursuit of understanding.  Roy's collection is valuable for exactly the same reasons.  

Returning to the topic that the thread has morphed into, How many Whitefriars cane-types might there be? Facts about production practices at Whitefriars would be useful. How often were canes pulled?  How many were made in a session, day, week or month? Were canes (other than mosaics) made specifically for to a new design or did designs make use of a stockpile of pre-existing canes?  And a question that strikes me as particularly relevant - How many cane moulds did Whitefriars use? After all, it's the moulds that begin the cane-making process and provide many of those detailed characteristics that we use to differentiate between factories.  So many questions!  Once again, 'Oh for better records!'  Former Whitefriars employees might be able to fill some of the gaps.

Peter
Peter

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Offline Sach

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Re: English inkwell - Whitefriars?
« Reply #18 on: February 08, 2012, 12:50:50 AM »
More information of how cane was pulled would also be critical.  Depending upon the size of the bundle being pulled out a single cane could be pulled out to a length of one arm span or to 10 meters.  Using 2mm-4mm slices in a set-up that yields wildly different numbers of slices available in the same pattern.

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Offline petern00

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Re: English inkwell - Whitefriars?
« Reply #19 on: February 11, 2012, 11:13:00 PM »
Alan.  Thanks for the pointer to the PCC Newsletter (No.96, April 2008) article about your bottle - located thanks to the archives on the PCC website (Members' Area).  I can see why you thought of this piece when you saw the bottle that began the thread; the colours are very similar.  Whilst constrained by the resolution of the PDF images from the newletter I can't match the canes within the two bottles .. No surprise. (BTW. The article's image of the Richardson '7/6' cane is the clearest I've seen. Thanks!)

Whilst looking for this article I came across others you've written, including your discussion of new 'OE' classifications. It drives home the point that there were many more sources of paperweights in England during the mid-twentieth century than the four we talk about most often; Arculus, Richardson, Walsh Walsh and Whitefriars. 

In looking more closely at the canes in the latest bottle I see that one is a 20-tooth cog.  (First concentric ring from centre- first image below) Most of the cogs I see elsewhere have 4, 8, 16, or occasionally 12 teeth.  A 20-tooth cog appears in another weight I have - second attached image [and might also be within the base of your bottle(?!] Is this feature of any significance for attribution purposes?

Peter
Peter

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