Sorry for not responding to this earlier.
Joe said:
ive only seen one from Kev H's ysart site
My personal web pages disappeared a couple years ago (courtesy of BT policy on member web space) and for various reasons I have not got around to doing anything about it. However, for general info, my one example of a PY sulphide can be seen in my article (written 1999) in
Angela Bowey's Glass Museum site.
Frank said:
... probably made in the 1920s]probably made in the 1920s
Did you mean 1930s Frank?
Even if some of the sulphide weights may have been experimental in, say, the late 1920s, one design - George VI & Elizabeth - is definitely no earlier than 1936.
A certain good reference book on Ysart Glass, states: "Paul has dated a particular weight, large and rough, as one of his earliest surviving examples made in 1932". My view has always been that the sulphide weights were most likely to have been developed after Paul had made his first weights, suggesting 1930s as the earliest period.
Another piece of evidence that has caused some confusion is an article in the 1983 PCA Bullletin by John Morley. It discusses a "Woman's Head" sulphide weight (of which my own example may be one of the group mentioned). It states that it was one of the first weights to use a PY cane [my wording] and was "made in 1946 or 1947". The information about the date of the first use of the "PY" cane is backed up by the original letter to John Morley from Paul Ysart, which was recently sold on eBay. However, Paul's dating of that weight, or of the use of the "py" cane, is incorrect since two weights signed with a PY cane were illustrated in the 1940 edition of "
Old Glass Paperweights" by Evangeline Bergstrom. Given the lead time required for a) acquisition of the weights and b) publication, the illustrated "signed py" weights must have been made no later than the late 1930s.
My info above does not rule out the (late) 1920s as a possible date for Paul's earliest weights but I feel that the first sulphide weights, especially those with well-set millefiori decoration, would more likely have been from the 1930s period.