Topic: Ruby Glass?

[Betty]

Hi, I'm new to this board and am hoping someone can help me. I was given a small red glass dish by my grandmother and someone mentioned to me that it may be ruby glass. Is there any charecteristics I could look for to identify whether it is?

Thank you very much for your help.

[Ivo]

It is very likely either copper flashed or Selenium glass - Ruby is an expensive procedure which was superseded by cheaper processes around 1830.
If you care to post a photograph we'll be glad to comment on that.

[Adam]

I'm puzzled by this query and by your answer, Ivo.  All my life, in my various necks of the woods, the word "ruby" has been used as an alternative to "red" for any glass of that colour even if it were made yesterday.  It is often qualified by a word indicating its composition, for example gold ruby, selenium ruby, or copper ruby.

Have I been missing something all these years or is this dependent upon where one lives?

Adam D.

[Leni]

I always thought that 'ruby' was just a slightly deeper shade than 'cranberry' and that both were invented names for various shades of red or pink glass!   :shock:  :?

[Pat]

That's what I thought Leni!

[Ivo]

If the question is "I have a red dish could it be ruby glass"  then I assume it refers to the rare and expensive gold ruby, not just any red glass. But the chances are slim that it is, in fact, gold ruby - so we need a photograph for verification.  You're the technician - for you ruby is a colour.  For other people it is the stuff that ancient myths and fables are made of....  am I making sense?

[Adam]

Not being a collector or dealer, the word "cranberry" was new to me when I began to take an interest in what you folks were up to - years after I left the industry.  Although I have never made a gold ruby myself I always knew what they looked like and this I now know to be synonymous with cranberry.

I made a lot of selenium ruby (at least that's what the industry called it). As generally produced it was the colour of vehicle rear lights although, being a "struck" colour it can fade off to straw around the edges - a property put to good use by some of the art glass makers.

People one generation earlier than me were full of stories about their own immediate ancestors watching the factory owner arriving when a pot of gold ruby-to-be was at the right condition and producing one or two gold sovereigns to throw in the pot.  That sounds technically horrible to me - there are (and probably always were) plenty of gold compounds which would mix much better but who am I to challenge old wives' tales when, in the medical field at least, so many are being proved correct now!!

Adam D.