Glass Message Board

Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => British & Irish Glass => Topic started by: RAY on March 16, 2005, 09:10:37 PM

Title: vasart / strathearn lamp base
Post by: RAY on March 16, 2005, 09:10:37 PM
pics gone, example in next post
Title: vasart / strathearn lamp base
Post by: Frank on March 16, 2005, 09:31:08 PM
Ray

(http://www.ysartglass.com/Vascat/Images/Lamp003.jpg)

This is the only factory named Vasart (that I know of) and it was called Balmoral. You can speculate on that and knowing the QEII's mother was a collector of Vasart might feed the speculation about who it was made for first - or who bought the first example. It is found signed and unsigned - so made throughout the Vasart periods but until now no examples have confirmed that Strathearn continued to make them.

It is a good piece of design, stable and well suited to the smaller homes of ordinary folk as well as Balmoral Castle.

On your example at 9'o'clock there is a brownish blob, partly obscured by a pale whitish-yellow piece of cane. I have often used this colour as an indicator of Strathearn - in that I never saw it in any labelled Vasart but often in Strathearn pieces. I think Kevin might recently have indicated a Vasart weight with this colour in? Which destroys that theory - if Kevin is right.

We know that Strathearn switched to a new supplier for colours, although Vincent also mixed his own colours from raw chemicals, but if this happened before or after the move from Perth to Crieff is not so certain. It could well be that it falls into that vague transitional period where the same people used the same stocks at both works and there is absolutely no way to differentiate between one or the other buildings production.

Actually, that is not completely true... there is one 'easy' way to distinguish if something was made at Crieff or Perth. At Crieff they used a different type of furnace fired by Propane gas whereas at Perth is was Coal gas fired. The only problem with this easy way is that no one has determined how to test that.

So Kevin, what do you think about my Whitish-yellow theory.

Anyone, do you have a labelled Vasart piece of glassware with that colour in it. Time to broaden the test base.
Title: vasart / strathearn lamp base
Post by: KevinH on March 16, 2005, 11:55:36 PM
Quote
... but until now no examples have confirmed that Strathearn continued to make them


So, are we saying that Ray's Balmoral is Strathearn? If so, for what reason?

Quote
... a pale whitish-yellow piece of cane. I have often used this colour as an indicator of Strathearn ... I never saw it in any labelled Vasart ...


http://www.btinternet.com/~kevh.glass/pages/vas-strath/weight01.htm
In the weight in the above link is a "cream" cane. Is this the same colour as the "pale whitish-yellow" referred to? If so QED. If not ... the question is still open.

 :)
Title: vasart / strathearn lamp base
Post by: Frank on March 17, 2005, 07:16:29 AM
Hi Kevin,

I knew I had seen a contradiction and that it involved you in some way, so my case dies. Or they did switch colour suppliers before the shift, as I say most of the glassware I saw the 'cream' in was Strathearn.

The joys of glass, years of observation leading to assumption.... then one piece and back to square one :(