Topic: Angus & Greener's First Registered Design of 21 December 1858

[Bernard C]

This is a splendid and magnificent covered butter, both parts clearly marked — an amazing survivor of its 155 years.   The lid fitting is very clever — it's a tight positive fit, ensuring that the contents are kept in good condition.

See my two images via http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-18555 both with click image to enlarge feature.

Total height 4½" (11.5cm), lid d. 6" (15cm), total weight 1lb 12oz (800g).

A remarkable example of the skill of our early mouldmakers and glassmakers.

Bernard C. 

[agincourt17]

 A very nice piece, Bernard.

There has been an oblong dish and a plate with the same RD number, 117501 of 21 December 1858, recently shown on GMB at
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,46298.0.html

(The plate shown will shortly be on its way to the Sunderland Museum to join their Greener glass collection).

It’s the old bus conundrum – nothing for ages, then three come along together.

These are the only photo examples of pieces in this design that I know of anywhere, and I look forward to seeing what other shapes in this design are forthcoming.

Just a thought – would this topic be better combined with the other topic threads in the British and Irish Glass section? Moderator’s opinion, please?

[Bernard C]

agincourt17 — Thanks for your reply.   I looked at the linked topic, and noticed that your plate measurement had been made in metric units.   Unfortunately useful information is sometimes lost by not using the units used by the manufacturer at the time.   Both my two measurements are exact, strongly indicating measurements that the mouldmaker worked to.   I actually used Janet's father's stamped yardstick, he was a professional engineer, to make the measurements — out of respect for the Angus & Greener craftsmen involved — and then did the conversion on my Stanley tape measure.   Silly of me, I know, but I felt comfortable doing it that way.

...   would this topic be better combined with the other topic threads in the British and Irish Glass section? Moderator’s opinion, please?   ...

No, not initially — perhaps later.   It's important that new topics are seen by as many as possible.   A decade ago, had British and American glass been split from the start, Tom Bredehoft and I might not have figured out that the Grace Darling boat was not really the iconic British pressed glass it had become, but a quite legal plagiarised version of the earlier Hobbs 101 yacht celery.   A vital step in the investigation of the Antikythera mechanism was posting the gear ratios discovered on as many discussion boards as they could find, particularly in subject areas that didn't initially appear to be relevant, to reach as many as possible.

Bernard C. 

[agincourt17]

Thank you, Bernard, for the link to this topic from the related Angus & Greener topic.

As to measurements, In future, I shall defer to your preferences and try and include measurements of British and Irish glass in Imperial units (though I shall also continue to include metric measurements for those sufficiently removed geographically or chronologically from the Imperial system to find it a mystery).

I can see that a glass mould would need to be made within reasonably tight tolerances, but the final glass items that comes from it must surely vary in size within much wider tolerances – is there any real merit in inappropriate precision in measurement (as in the cases of estate or land agents who quote their land areas to the fifth decimal place of an acre or hectare and then conclude with the caveat “or thereabouts”)?

For pressed glass pieces, I assume that dimensions to the nearest millimetre will suffice – I’m not sure where my metric callipers and micrometers are at the moment. (In the case of the Angus & Greener plate, I think 165mm is only about 0.1mm away from 6½ inches). As to the Imperial measurements, would you like them to be in fractions of an inch (and if so, how small a fraction), thousandths of an inch for those who need true Imperial engineering precision, or will decimals of an inch to 2 significant decimal points do? 

In respect of the most appropriate section for posting new topics so that

... new topics are seen by as many as possible

I could understand initially putting (or keeping) a new topic in the general Glass section if it referred to a general point or was seeking identification or attribution, but there is absolutely no question as the country of manufacturer, attribution, detailed identification or dating of the Angus & Greener RD 117501 pieces. Am I to imply that all my new topics should be initially posted under the general Glass section, thereby seeking the widest possible exposure on GMB, and only moved to a specialist section when deemed appropriate by the moderators?