Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => Germany => Topic started by: Ohio on July 11, 2008, 06:50:59 PM
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Probably a silly question, but I picked this up & figured it was Czech...a tiny little metal tag on what I think might be Nickel silver was attached & it says "Made in Germany". Would this be one of those deals where its Bohemian/Czech, but still was considered Germany? I think its 30's era. Thanks, Ken
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Sorry to disappoint you but we're probably looking at a contemporary Moroccan item here - no idea what a made in Germany label would be doing there...
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Thank you for your opinion Ivo. Forgive me. however I respectfully disagree, 100% as a matter of fact. Not to say that you may not have seen something like this that was contemporary Moroccan, however this isn't Moroccan, but again in all fairness you are not able to examine it in person. The shape & obvious color is Czech, multiple examples of the shape can be found in Robt. Truitt's Bohemian Glass. Actually quite common color for them with typical ground rim. I do have some small experience in glass (34 years) & am not a complete dolt although granted its mainly US glass & although I am not an author I am mentioned as a contributor in a couple of glass references, again US references. As for why a "Made in Germany", metal tag (not a label) is on the piece, well since Nickel Silver is commonly known as German Silver (since it was developed in Germany over 200 years ago) & this is Nickel Silver with your typical silver loss associated with years of ill care/neglect. No suprises that it has a German tag, just thought it interesting. The tiny tag by the way is quite firmly attached by pinching two protrusions under the vining. I was looking into German/Czech relationship since Czechoslovakia was in fact formed within confines of Bohemia & bordered by Germany & simply thought it interesting. In retrospect it was a meaningless question that was not worth posting. Regards (as the British say) Ken
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Is the woven stuff metal, is that what you mean? Wow.
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Yes Kristi its typical German Silver copper, zinc & nickel combo. This one shows the silverish/goldish toning when the finish is pretty much on its last legs. Found out its called a cage vase (although from a US source so it probably won't count) & a dealer swears this one was pictured in one of Heacock's Glass Digest monthly mags back in the early mid-80's. Fitting my post is to you as you are the patient, scholarly one. I'm headed back home...simply tired of the condescending right or wrong, my way or the highway answers although 99% of the folks here are simply teriffic. Adiós....Ken
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That is a very bizarre reaction to say the very least. You want the piece to be something which it isn't and seem to think Czechoslovakia was part of Germany. Not so. Then you want it to be old, which it is not, citing Truitt and NS wire alloy. :huh: Then you identify it as a product from the eighties - which would be correct - but you miss the Moroccan connection. Metal weave around glass and pottery is a traditional Moroccan craft, so one one of the decorator companies did a line of moroccan inspired vases. And even in the eighties he would have been wise to have them assembled in Morocco. That's all there is to it and there is no reason at all to get worked up.
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As a matter of interest, g-m-a do you happen to have a copy of Ivo's book? :)
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No idea on the origins of this piece but Morocco seems to pop up a lot as a low-cost location of decorating companies, many French owned and back to 1900 at least. Equally, a lot of German companies owned glassworks in Czechoslovakia until WW2 a side effect of which that as the Germans got kicked out at the end of the war a lot of documentation was destroyed.
With blanks and other aspects of technology, such as nickel silver, being exported that does only leave a knowledge of the end products as often the only means of identifying where the finished product was produced. This for Europe is certainly one of Ivo's most impressive strengths. Decorating companies always have sourced based on cost and it is possible that a German company commissioned these and tagged as German made. Similar things are reported going on in Murano too. So the glass could come from Czechoslovakia, or elsewhere, the wire could come from Germany. Using such a tag makes a lot of sense on a metal covered product, paper labels would be very temporary. Metal can decay very quickly if not stored in ideal conditions.
I think, mostly, we are aware of and respect your knowledge g-m-a. It often happens here that brief answers can often raise hackles. From my perspective, I cannot afford the time to always give a detailed answer but as Ivo did, I do follow up with more detail if the brief response causes puzzlement.
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"since Czechoslovakia was in fact formed within confines of Bohemia & bordered by Germany"...no Ivo I do not believe I stated that Czechoslovakia was part of Germany anywhere in my last post, but if you choose to interpret it as such so be it. Maybe its another of those US-European verbage deals. Heacock's Glass Digests were published 1987-91 until his passing & dealt primarily with glass from 1800 to the mid-1950's, but you may not be aware of that fact since it was a US publication. I was citing the publication & a source that I'll have to review since I have two suggestions that the piece appeared there. I did not identify it as a product from the eighties, I was speaking of the magazine's date as a search resource, but again it may be another verbage deals. Frank's explanation does help though as we too had decorating companies here in the US that acquired blanks & either returned them to the original manufacture or retailed the finished product themselves. What provoked my response was your comment "contemporary". Now I see you've added "Metal weave around glass and pottery is a traditional Moroccan craft, so one one of the decorator companies did a line of moroccan inspired vases." Now if metal weave is a traditional Moroccan craft" when did this start? In the 1980's? or has this been going on for let's say a century or more? Is it improbable/impossible to imagine that a German concern supplied the NS, a Czech concern supplied the blank & a Moroccan firm did the decoration even in the 1930's & either marketed it themselves or returned the finished product to either the German or Czech firms for retail? or does it have to be exclusively the 1980's because that's the only documentation you've found? Although this may not be surprising since the extensive loss of written information destroyed in WWII. Ivo my response was predicated on what I viewed as your initial response being as we Americans say "a little quick on the trigger" with the word "contemporary". Now if you meant that this practice (Moroccan wire weave decorating of glass) has gone on for decades & is ongoing even today then it become a different matter. One of the things we embrace over here is never say never when it comes to glass, but granted that's over here. Perhaps these are legitimate questions, perhaps not. Ken
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Just a thought - wouldn't the fact that the tag says "Germany" mean it was produced before 1949 or after 1990?
Ivo, do you mean to say the glass was made in Morocco, too? In your first post that's the way it sounds; in your second it sounds more like the metal work was "outsourced." Is it possible German companies had Moroccans trained in this type of decoration working for them? Seems a long way to send a glass vase!
Moderator: Post edited in accordance with board guidelines
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Just to confuse the issue further...
Is it possible that it was made in Moroco and then sent to Germany to sell, hence the Germany tag? And yes, given that it says Germany (not east nor west) I would suggest it would have been sent back to Germany after the dissolution of the soviet union.
Carolyn
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Thanks, however I found a resource from Germany through another avenue regarding the dating of the metal tag & in their opinion (when it was in use) the tag is not what one would consider recent. Discussion is closed as far as I'm concerned.