Topic: Davidson glass?

[Glasslover2015]

A new treat for my open salt collection purchased from England 4 inches tall, bowl is 2.5 inches across, 1.5 inches deep, not sure as I can't find this anywhere the suggestion was Davidson or  Sowerby - any help appreciated😊

[Glasslover2015]

View of the bottom, also could this perhaps be a match striker?  Thank you very much!

[Paul S.]

nice piece, and good find.            If you scroll down the attached link you should find something similar  -  not sure whether Fred is able to add any more information at present.
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,62586.msg354751.html#msg354751

My opinion is that this will not double up as a match striker  -  those piece have a compartment quite distinct in shape to this salt, and the striking area is usually quite distinctive too.

[Glasslover2015]

Thank you so much!!  And glad you feel it is a salt, and Davidson😊😊. Mine isn't as tall as the pair and thinking the top of mine a bit different???  May be not???  If anyone would have this in a reference book or catalog I would be thrilled!  To see it!  Any good reference book I should be looking for?  And thank you again!!!!

[agincourt17]

Glasslover 2015, I don't know of any Davidson catalogue/s that show this particular 'dolphin' design (which was, by the way, unregistered).

The catalogues of Davidson unregistered designs issued between 1880 and 1890 show four 'match stands', pattern numbers 300 through 303. Numbers 300, 301 and 303 have a sharply 'stippled' area on part of the exterior that acted as an abrasive surface against which to strike the heads of non-safety matches. See the attached catalogue images and photos of number 303 match stands in black opaque and purple marbled glass. (By the way, both the 303 match stands are marked with the Davidson demi-lion trademark on the underside of the foot).

Your 'dolphin' piece does have a stippled area to the top of the foot which could possibly have served as a match striker.  I suppose the acid test is to try striking  the head of a non-safety match against it and see if it lights! - if it does then you have a salt-cum-match striker, if not then you have an open salt.

Fred.

[Paul S.]

very interesting comments - thanks Fred.

It's rather an irony to call red-tipped matches 'safety'  -  they're probably anything but, and in the late C19 the poor Bryant & May girls suffered disfigurement from 'fossy mouth' due to the phosphorous content.
I dare say you could strike them on almost anything that had some element of roughness.

I notice your images have the caption 'match stands', or 'holders', but am sure some of those stippled surfaces are more than adequate to ignite the match.                  Generally, glass match strikers from slightly later dates have the very recognizable close ribbed sections and have a shallow cavity for the matches and are very frequently of some form of spherical shape  -  but not always as you can see.

[agincourt17]

Interesting, Paul. Are any of them registered designs?

Some of my images are captioned 'match stands' or 'holders' because the Davidson catalogue images appear under the heading of 'match stands' and we used to call such things 'match holders' when I was a child.

The Sowerby pattern 1368 (RD 328741of  4 November 1878 - Parcel 10) match stand/holder/striker/whatever has an abrasive stippled foot, whereas the 1367 and 1378 versions have abrasive stippled areas plus close ribbed areas for good measure, and the 1390 version just 2 separate areas with close ribs.

Fred.

[Paul S.]

sorry Fred, none of my strikers is a Registered Design - wish they were.

[KevinH]

At the risk of having to transfer my own post to the Cafe:

I dare say you could strike them on almost anything that had some element of roughness.

I recall the cowboys of the films of the 1950s/60s were able to strike matches on the seat of their pants!