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Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => Germany => Topic started by: fiddlesticks on August 07, 2005, 03:14:31 PM

Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: fiddlesticks on August 07, 2005, 03:14:31 PM
Wondered if anyone could help in identifying this celery vase.  Had a good mooch around the net and am no further.  .

Could someone also tell me what the difference is between depression glass and pressed glass

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/fiddlesticks/cel1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/fiddlesticks/cel2.jpg

Mod: The photos have vanished, but thread retained for info on celery vases.
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 07, 2005, 03:23:00 PM
I'm not sure who made your item, at first glance. I'll see what I can come up with.

Pressed glass is glass that has been made by the process of hand or machine pressing (rather than "blowing" for example).

Depression glass is one type of pressed glass - it was made in the USA in the Depression era (circa 1930s) and was generally machine pressed on production lines. It is generally found in utilitarian shapes, such as luncheon sets, dinner sets, water sets and stemware - and in pale colors, such as light pink, green and blue. The moulded patterns tend to be light and in low relief. Typical manufacturers were companies such as Jeanette, Anchor Hocking and Federal.

Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: glasswizard on August 07, 2005, 03:39:42 PM
Interesting. Almost looks like wings on the base to accentuate the seams. Of course by the depression era, celery vases were a thing of the past. The pressing of glass really hit its stride in what we call EAPG or early American pressed glass from about 1870 onwards when glass could be produced abundantly and cheaply. This particular piece does not look American to me. Terry
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Adam on August 07, 2005, 03:48:40 PM
Fiddlesticks - I presume your vase has "celery" marked on it somewhere.  This was a tax fiddle in the UK (and elsewhere??) immediately post WW2.  Any container to hold foodstuffs attracted low or zero tax.  No one seriously expected it to be used for anything other than flowers!

I don't recognise your vase.  It would be a help generally if everyone would put their location (just country will do fine) on their Profile as an aid to first-stage guesswork as to where things might have originated.

Adam D.
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 07, 2005, 03:56:06 PM
If we can allow ourselves "gut feel" then I am going to suggest this could be Rindskopf, Czech - 1920-30 ish.

Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Anne on August 07, 2005, 04:11:11 PM
I seem to recall I read somewhere that Depression Glass is fairly thin glass - presumably to keep the cost down in an era of financial difficulty - or did I dream this?
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 07, 2005, 04:32:43 PM
The Depression Glass I am familiar with isn't really any different in thickness to other glass made in the years either side of it. JMHO

Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Max on August 07, 2005, 05:00:41 PM
Fiddlesticks, please excuse me for a moment hijacking your thread  :(  :oops:  :oops:  

Adam D said:
Quote
I presume your vase has "celery" marked on it somewhere. This was a tax fiddle in the UK (and elsewhere??) immediately post WW2. Any container to hold foodstuffs attracted low or zero tax.


Adam?  I bought this vase last week, on first appraisal I thought Webb or Whitefriars.  I was very confused to read the etched word 'Celery' to the uppermost rim!  There's loads of wear to the base (concave circular pontil mark) and it did make me scratch my head a bit, trying to work out why they would acid etch it.   :roll:  

I feel bad hijacking Fiddlesticks thread, but I wasn't going to post this vase at all...but how can I resist now?  :lol:   :lol:  

http://tinypic.com/a3z5kw.jpg  (see 'Celery' on furthest rim)
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Anne on August 07, 2005, 08:30:35 PM
Quote from: "Glen"
The Depression Glass I am familiar with isn't really any different in thickness to other glass made in the years either side of it. JMHO

Glen


Ahhh right, thanks Glen. I probably read someone else's misunderstanding or I did dream it!  :roll:
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: fiddlesticks on August 08, 2005, 01:03:40 PM
thanks everso for the info Glen, suppose it's pretty much the same but UK and USA call it something different.

Max - you can thread my hijack anytime matey  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

Love the claw feet on this piece.  Doesn't have "celery" on it, just assumed it was a celery vase because of the shape
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 08, 2005, 03:04:11 PM
Hi fiddlesticks - I'm a bit puzzled (happens a lot nowadays  :lol:)

You said
Quote from: "fiddlesticks"
thanks everso for the info Glen, suppose it's pretty much the same but UK and USA call it something different.


What is it that the UK and the USA use different terms for?

BTW, I think your piece is a vase - and a splendid one too!

Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: fiddlesticks on August 08, 2005, 09:30:34 PM
are we opting for more of a vase than a celery vase then folks, seems a good difference of opinion. :lol:
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 09, 2005, 07:24:41 AM
This is quite an interesting point...

When is a vase not a vase? When it's a celery. So what are the defining characteristics that make a celery a celery and a vase a vase? I think it's fair to say that pretty much all celeries could double up as vases, yet all vases couldn't double up as celeries.

I tend to think of a celery as having fairly specific proportions, whereby it's not tall and elegant, but is instead, more of a chunky shape.

And to muddy the waters totally, what would you call this shape? (Apologies at borrowing someone's eBay auction just to illustrate a point about shape)
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CARNIVAL-GLASS-CELERY-VASE_W0QQitemZ7342214624QQcategoryZ16QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

It's often called a celery. To make things worse, it has been termed a Chalice and is still referred to as a Cathedral Chalice in some books. In fact, according to the maker of the piece (Brockwitz) it is a Traubenspuler. In French a coupe lave-raisin. In English a celery. Now if my attempts at German and French are correct, I believe that the item would also have been used for grapes (to clean them).

Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: ChrisStewart on August 09, 2005, 07:31:19 AM
Hi All,

Quote from: "Adam"
Fiddlesticks - I presume your vase has "celery" marked on it somewhere.  This was a tax fiddle in the UK (and elsewhere??) immediately post WW2.  Any container to hold foodstuffs attracted low or zero tax.  No one seriously expected it to be used for anything other than flowers!


The government eventually got wise to this tax fiddle and introduced maximum sizes for these 'foodstuff' articles. A celery could only be called a celery if it was less than a certain size.

Regards

Chris
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Anonymous on August 09, 2005, 05:42:03 PM
Quote from: "Glen"

And to muddy the waters totally, what would you call this shape? (Apologies at borrowing someone's eBay auction just to illustrate a point about shape)
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CARNIVAL-GLASS-CELERY-VASE_W0QQitemZ7342214624QQcategoryZ16QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Glen


that is sooooooo spooky Glen  :wink: , just had a look at the auction and see what I have, looks exactly the same pattern to me, I have a pair.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/fiddlesticks/depressvase1.jpg

Don't the americans call this shape a spooner?  
Are mine celery vases then or are we going for vases  :lol:
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: fiddlesticks on August 09, 2005, 05:45:11 PM
oooooooooooooops,  :oops:   last post was from me, forgot to sign in  :oops:  :oops:
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 09, 2005, 06:56:53 PM
Fiddlesticks - a spooner is a different thing again. It came as part of a 4 piece table set: covered butter, (usually covered) sugar, spooner and creamer. The spooner generally looked pretty much the same as the covered sugar but without the lid. I am sure you know, but for anyone who might not, it was intended to hold spoons at table.

The celery vase on the auction (which is the same as your clear glass one) was made by Brockwitz in Germany. It is a celery vase, or a traubenspuler (for your grapes). Brockwitz made a number of similar shaped items.

Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: glasswizard on August 09, 2005, 07:56:03 PM
It does get confusing. All the different shapes. Besides the different pieces Glen mentioned in the four pc. table set, Butter, sugar, creamer, spooner, you can add the celery, various sized compotes, trays, bowls salt dips (which went in conjuction with the celery vase, they were small dishes to hold salt and to dip your celery in.) Early American Pattern glass can be viewed much like a china service today. You would pick a favorite pattern and try to have as many pieces as you could so they all matched. Quite a feat when one considers that a given pattern might contain the celery vase, a dish for pickles and a seperate one for olives, an almond dish, cheese dish, jelly dish, mustard jar, toothpick holder, tumblers, goblets, etc.
Many a time I have had a dish and once having learned the pattern name, then tried to find out exactly what the dish was for. And to think at that time, no dishwashers OH MY!
Anyway for your enjoyment here is a selection of celery vases to show some of the variety you can find.
http://tinypic.com/a9og8l.jpg  Terry
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 09, 2005, 08:02:45 PM
Gorgeous pic of your celeries, Terry!

English tableware was exactly the same as EAPG during that era. Dishes for everything you could name, plus a few more besides. If you look at the page on this link (the Sowerby CD) and scroll down to the sample pages, you can see a small selection of tableware shapes in the Pineapple pattern.
http://www.geocities.com/carni_glass_uk_2000/sowerbycd.html

Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Anonymous on August 12, 2005, 05:19:01 PM
lovely celery vases Terry, none that I have come across in the UK.  

Oooooo, so I have a pair of German celery vases then like the one listed on ebay, goody goody.  Any idea of age Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 12, 2005, 05:21:29 PM
Those Brockwitz "Curved Star" celery vases (company pattern name was Zurich) were made in the 1920s and 1930s.

Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Anonymous on August 12, 2005, 07:54:50 PM
Quote from: "Glen"
Gorgeous pic of your celeries, Terry!

Glen



Well I do declare...what next :oops:  :oops:  :oops:  :oops:


Gareth
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 12, 2005, 09:00:36 PM
OK, OK, fantastic traubenspulers Terry.

Is that better?  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Anonymous on August 12, 2005, 09:49:32 PM
Quote from: "Glen"
OK, OK, fantastic traubenspulers Terry.

Is that better?  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:




Well :shock:  :shock:  :shock: out of the frying pan and into the fire....and an attempted disguise with technical foreign innuendos too :shock:  :shock:  :oops:  :oops:  :oops: ...where are you Frank


Gareth
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Frank on August 12, 2005, 10:35:40 PM
Right here, what's up :shock:
Title: Celery glass
Post by: SteveM on August 12, 2005, 11:00:41 PM
The story that I heard about "celery glass" was that at some point in history?
British glassmakers were forbidden to make anything except utilitarian glass.
But they still wanted to make "art glass" so they came up with this sort of thing.Crackled glass with CELERY etched onto one of the pair.
http://tinypic.com/ae2tfc.jpg

I've got the other one and that has no "celery" on it!
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 13, 2005, 08:04:56 AM
SteveM - it was the tax thing that Adam D mentioned earlier in the thread. Utiltarian glassware attracted a lower tax than fancy glass for frivolous uses such as floral decoration! So, if the "vase" is of a shape that could hold a head of celery, then the factory could call it a vase and it wouldn't attract as much tax.

Frank - you can stand down - Gareth's just teasing  :lol:

Gareth - we could always go the classy French way and call them Coupe lave-raisins.

And on a final note of interest - the Curved Star celery which is shown in the Brockwitz catalogue as a celery (traubenspuler etc etc) is also shown on the Blumenvase section as a Flower vase. If you offer a dual use then you'll sell more!

Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Frank on August 13, 2005, 09:01:29 AM
(http://www.ysartglass.com/Images/Mailsleep.gif)
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 13, 2005, 09:04:24 AM
OK everyone, now that Frank's asleep..............................

 :lol:  :lol:
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: SteveM on August 13, 2005, 10:40:43 AM
Thanks Glen.
It's like the old Nu Joisey saying...invent a tax,create a bizniz(or was that..make a law,create a business?)  :D
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Anonymous on August 13, 2005, 10:52:17 AM
Quote from: "Frank"
(http://www.ysartglass.com/Images/Mailsleep.gif)





Glen

See ....thats the trouble with living in Amsterdam....so blase.. no matter what the language :roll:  :roll: . .... I bet they even eat :shock:  :shock: celery sticks over there


Gareth :)
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 13, 2005, 11:00:33 AM
Yes, they're soooooo laid back in Amsterdam. It's all that advocaat you know (I shouldn't egg Frank on, should I?  :lol: )

I tried to get a translation into Dutch for celery vase (traubenspuler, tee dah, tee dah, tee dah etc) but I can't find an online translator that does Dutch  :shock:

I can do Croatian, Fillipino, Serbian and even Icelandic...but not Dutch!

Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Frank on August 13, 2005, 11:27:10 AM
http://www.freetranslation.com/
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 13, 2005, 11:32:31 AM
Yesssssss.........De selderij vaas.

Thank you Frank.

I've been using this one, which is very good for the Scandinavian languages and some other weird ones!

http://translation.langenberg.com/

Glen
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Anonymous on August 13, 2005, 11:59:05 AM
Heres another one..... with quite hilarious results sometimes.
I've put that transwossit name into various but it simply translates it back to the same word......... perhaps its one of the multi-national words like Dubbya :!:  :!:

 http://world.altavista.com/


Gareth
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: SteveM on August 13, 2005, 04:22:24 PM
I believe that the full name for what in English is called "celery" is "bleekselderij" in Dutch...bleached or white celery and with the Dutch penchant for lumping words together( a la German!!) you would get "bleekselderijvaas"
 :roll:

No, I'm sure that it's not valid in this case  :lol:
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Glen on August 13, 2005, 04:38:59 PM
Gareth and SteveM - thanks  :lol:  :lol:

Aye carumba! I'm beginning to think it's best to call this thing a Varze after all.
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Anonymous on August 14, 2005, 05:26:29 PM
Quote from: "Glen"
Those Brockwitz "Curved Star" celery vases (company pattern name was Zurich) were made in the 1920s and 1930s.

thanks Glen  honey
Title: A rather ornate celery vase?
Post by: Anonymous on August 14, 2005, 06:34:47 PM
Quote from: "SteveM"
I believe that the full name for what in English is called "celery" is "bleekselderij" in Dutch...bleached or white celery and with the Dutch penchant for lumping words together( a la German!!) you would get "bleekselderijvaas"
 :roll:

No, I'm sure that it's not valid in this case  :lol:


Correct - words are contracted: Selderijvaas.
Bleekselderij = celery, Knolselderij = Celeriac.
ananotherthing: never trust an online translator!
Ivo