Topic: Help identifying....

[aa]

Due to the absurd quantity of arsenico (I don't know the english word, sorry  :oops: ) they recognize that the stock was from China.

The English word is very close....arsenic!
For obvious reasons most glass recipes now have been revised to remove the arsenic. My namesake, Adam D (the other Adam) would be able to tell you the precise use, but I think it was either a fining agentor a flux.

The main reason for removing it was to protect glassmakers on Health and Safety grounds. I don't think any consumer ever suffered from the minute arsenic content within the glass, unless they were circus performers eating the glass, in which case the ground glass probably did more harm than the arsenic!

[Adam]

Thanks, Adam A. for pointing me to this thread which I would have missed otherwise.

By coincidence in the last few days I was asked about the use of arsenic and this is what I said:-

"Re arsenic, it most certainly was used, and probably still is in huge quantities.  “Arsenic” or “white arsenic” are really arsenious oxide.  We bought ours in, I think, 2 ton lots.  4 or 5 lbs in around a ton of glass would be quite common.  The main (alleged) benefits are helping control colour, especially in 'colourless' compositions and improving melting rates.  Quite a lot would go up the chimney to be spread around the neighbourhood.  There is, of course, no danger at all from the finished glass.  The arsenic, like everything else, is securely locked in.  It came in small, strong barrels (it was extremely dense) and I remember my mixing room crew using an empty as a table for their sandwiches!"

You will see that I assumed that it was still widely used.  Maybe I was wrong - I have no contacts in the industry now.  Although the hazards to the workers are obvious I would have hoped that, in the glass industry at least, common sense would have prevailed.

It is 13 years since I retired from my second career as a Health and Safety Inspector.  I am sickened by the way, since then, "health'n'safety" has been used as an excuse for the most outrageous assaults on common sense.

Adam D.

[wrightoutlook]

The owner of the item, Carterofmars, indicates he paid $10 for the piece, which was originally priced at $20. This means the seller paid something like $3 or $4 for the piece, if that. Sellers don't shave away at their profit margins, unless they paid very little originally. Quality Murano pieces would wholesale and retail for a lot more. Perhaps these are Murano canes sold in a lot by the tens of thousands and transported, but this is not a made-in-Murano item.

[bidda]

the price paid, alone, can't really be a valid indicator of authenticity. i've purchased pieces for $10 or less that turned out to be the real deal, a couple of times they even had labels that the sellers didn't think worth mentioning!

also, i've been known to take a loss on items i was selling simply because i don't have the space to hold on to them forever and figure it's better to recover at least most of what i paid rather than get nothing. i know that's not the best business practice but it's only a hobby for me (one that allows me just enough to support my buying habit lol).

bidda

The owner of the item, Carterofmars, indicates he paid $10 for the piece, which was originally priced at $20. This means the seller paid something like $3 or $4 for the piece, if that. Sellers don't shave away at their profit margins, unless they paid very little originally. Quality Murano pieces would wholesale and retail for a lot more. Perhaps these are Murano canes sold in a lot by the tens of thousands and transported, but this is not a made-in-Murano item.