Topic: Caithness dragonfly C11G

[Wuff]

Noughts and Crosses is an unlimited design - so seconds are quite normal.

Just a hint: there is a Caithness online catalogue on Scotland's Glass - several years still missing, but already 2669 (as of today) Caithness items depicted. Information includes designer, year of issue, edition size (plus more in many cases).

[tamefox]

I'm pretty sure Colin also stated in print that LE seconds were crushed - either in Reflections or an earlier newsletter.

This is also the fourth CIIG Dragonfly of this type I have seen on ebay in the last 7 years.

- maybe the same one going round and round - but I don't think so....

Perhaps it was such a new technique that Colin couldn't bear to destroy them - rather add a slight variation?

[chriscooper]

Don't know enough about the original one to comment on the added frosted pattern but here are some more photos showing it if anyone's got one to compare?
Thank you for the help so far.

https://picasaweb.google.com/107067405711297858658/Untitled24#

Chris

[tropdevin]

***
I thought that 'Noughts and Crosses' was a very unlimited edition....

Alan

[Leni]

Don't know enough about the original one to comment on the added frosted pattern but here are some more photos showing it if anyone's got one to compare?
Thank you for the help so far.

https://picasaweb.google.com/107067405711297858658/Untitled24#

Chris

I had one of these weights which was also a second, Chris.  Mine had the frosted markings round the bottom, same as yours has, so I don't think that's an out-of-the-ordinary addition, but is part of the design.  Mine had a piece of frit in the bottom, which was why it was a second. 

[chriscooper]

I did think that too Leni thought maybe the pattern round the base  represented flora or maybe water? but Wuff assures me this was not on the limited production run, anyone got one.

Chris

[Wuff]

Mine had the frosted markings round the bottom, same as yours has, so I don't think that's an out-of-the-ordinary addition, but is part of the design.

Well - will depend on how you define "out-of-the-ordinary" and "part of the design": the "original design" does not have the frosted feature - but (if what I was told is correct) this was added to LE weights with a minor(!) flaw, to make it sufficiently different from the limited edition design, and thus be allowed to sell it as second. Consequently you could call it
- "part of the design" of the weight as (unlimited) second, and it will not be
- "out-of-the-ordinary" ... unless minor flaws would be out-of-the-ordinary.

[Leni]

(if what I was told is correct) this was added to LE weights with a minor(!) flaw, to make it sufficiently different from the limited edition design, and thus be allowed to sell it as second.

This is very interesting information, Wolf.  Were you told whether this was a general rule which applied to all seconds of limited editions?  I had always thought that the CIIG on the base was the only thing that made seconds different from the perfect weights, and that differences such as leaving a weight un-faceted were simply because it was not worth expending additional time and effort on a second, rather than an attempt to make it deliberately different.  It seems a little strange to me to deliberately add a feature such as the etching around the dragonfly weight - obviously involving more time and effort! - just in order to sell it as a second! 

[chopin-liszt]

But it allows folk to train in etching technique, Leni! 
(I've been through all this before and Wuff explained it, with my FireDance weight - a second, which is etched around the base with hearts. It is also a nightmare to photograph.)

[Wuff]

It seems a little strange to me to deliberately add a feature such as the etching around the dragonfly weight - obviously involving more time and effort! - just in order to sell it as a second!

You have to see it the other way round: seconds of limited weights are a no-go ... so the alternatives were
1. throw it away, or
2. modify it to make it different from the LE design.
In other words - with comparatively little effort you got something which could be sold, instead if discarded.