Glass Message Board

Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => British & Irish Glass => Topic started by: RichardP on January 15, 2012, 09:04:50 PM

Title: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: RichardP on January 15, 2012, 09:04:50 PM
Hi everyone, im new to the forum and have been collecting glass for a couple of years. I recently came accross this vase and wondered if anyone could help me identify it. Its 6 inches high and has a ground out pontil (not very neatly) and has quite alot of base wear around the edge of the foot, probably 1930s. Any help would be much appreciated. I love it!
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: Bernard C on January 15, 2012, 09:39:08 PM
Richard — Welcome to the GMB

Although I can't eliminate the possibility other manufacturers, your vase is the only real candidate I've yet seen for a piece matching a late 1939 trade advertisement by Haden, Mullett & Haden:

(http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/albums/userpics/10318/normal_hmh_pgad_19390901.jpg) (http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-8614)

Click for GlassGallery link with a click to enlarge option.

If it is Haden, Mullett & Haden, it is an important piece for the history of Stourbridge glass.

Thanks for posting it.

Bernard C.  8)
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: flying free on January 15, 2012, 09:41:15 PM
Oh goodness ...I'm going to be wrong again, but I would vote Stevens and Williams.
It looks very similar to the cloudy swirling on a large pink vase I have, with the exeption of the round whorl on it and the ground out pontil (mine is a large polished pontil mark) - I've posted a pic of my vase.  It's not the best to show the swirling but the swirling on the interior is a cobwebby white like your vase.
m
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: Bernard C on January 15, 2012, 10:10:49 PM
M — Please forgive me for asking, but I would be interested in how you arrived at the S&W attribution for your vase?   I'm not disputing it, but you may well have access to sources of which I'm not aware.

Bernard C.  8)
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: flying free on January 15, 2012, 10:49:04 PM
Nigel identified it for me  :sun:
see link here
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,41369.msg228957.html#msg228957
However mine does have a large polished pontil mark and as I say, I'm probably wrong  :-X
Richard there is a better picture of the cloudy white bit but not of the inside - I'll try and do one later.
looking at Charles Hajdamach's 20th century british glass Graystan did do a similar shape (page 92 plate 177) though the foot doesn't look the same but then on page 88 plate 168 the red cloudy vase has a very similar foot to Richard's piece and a similar cobwebby appearance.
m
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: RichardP on January 16, 2012, 04:27:56 PM
Thank you for all your replys, I had never heard of Haden Mullett and Haden before, and looking at the 1939 advertisment, there are definate similarities with the end vase on the right and mine. I also found a vase on the Millers Antiques guide website that is attributed to HMH by Fieldings Auctioneers in Stourbridge, please follow the link http://www.millersantiquesguide.com/items/127410/1930s-stourbridge-cloudy-glass/ (http://www.millersantiquesguide.com/items/127410/1930s-stourbridge-cloudy-glass/)
although this one is much brighter coloured but the use of white glass is very similar. Just to add that I found my vase less than a stones throw from Amblecote! 
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: flying free on January 16, 2012, 04:49:32 PM
Nice vase in the link as well  :sun:
I'm going off my S&W possibility having photographed the close up.  The colour doesn't look to have been made in the same way.  Mine looks as though it is white swirls within a pink glass (I've attached the pics anyway for reference).  The colour on yours looks to have been applied differently, so Bernard's possible HMH looks a closer bet (and also maybe Gray-Stan?).
As a matter of interest, is the glass on the foot of yours a slight yellowish colour or completely clear?  Also does yours have lots of tiny bubbles in it?
m
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: RichardP on January 16, 2012, 09:12:11 PM
The foot on my vase is completely clear with no air bubbles, there are a few larger air bubbles in the body of the vase but looking at your lovely S&W vase, which has alot of small air bubbles, they are quite different.
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: nigel benson on January 16, 2012, 10:38:25 PM
Richard,

I believe that you will find that your vase is pre-war Nazeing. It is known as a Tapering Vase shape no. 2021.

If the vase is the only one I recall being at Fieldings with the HMH attribution, it was actually WMF and not HMH. Identified as such by a number of experienced dealers at the time, despite the provenance of the collection it was from.

Nigel

PS. Richard if you could send me hi res photos on awhite background, I'd be very grateful. Thanks, Nigel
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: flying free on January 16, 2012, 10:57:02 PM
darn it  (I did ask about the foot though which shows I was thinking possibly Nazeing  ;D) and  I did look again at this (see link), but then thought no not similar enough  ;D

http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,37065.msg202400.html#msg202400
m
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: RichardP on January 17, 2012, 04:33:38 PM
Many thanks Nigel, the mystery is solved, im very grateful. :hiclp:

I will take some more photos and email them to you shortly.

That really is the beauty of collecting glass, you never stop learning.

I assume that HMH glassware is pretty scarce then, are there any examples at Broadfield house or infact anywhere?
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: nigel benson on January 17, 2012, 11:41:26 PM

As far as I'm aware, there are no documented examples of the art glass similar to those in the image that Bernard used. However, on reflection I believe I have seen three examples that, at the time, I had no idea who they were by and are no longer traceable :o ::)

All were on seperate occasions and at auction.

Nigel
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: Bernard C on January 18, 2012, 07:56:09 AM
As far as I'm aware, there are no documented examples of the art glass similar to those in the image that Bernard used. However, on reflection I believe I have seen three examples that, at the time, I had no idea who they were by and are no longer traceable.   ...

I don't think it's necessarily that simple.

One aspect of industry and commerce missed by many with little experience of business is the consultative representative, sometimes one person, sometimes a team of two or more.   I was one of these, selling systems software to mainframe computer users at all levels, from MD to systems programmer.   Selling involved all aspects from demonstrating the product, through the formal sales process, to helping implement the product effectively to ensure a satisfied client.   One of the products I sold for several years was Shadow, a fast, efficient, limited facility teleprocessing monitor, directly competing with IBM's MTCS and CICS.   For Shadow the UK was split into two sales areas — the Home Counties and the rest, my patch.   An interesting aspect of this became evident to the central support team in London.   They could tell which patch a client was in by subtle differences in the way Shadow was implemented and used.   So each of the two UK sales teams had left its own permanent imprint on the client's use of the product.

The same applied to colouring mineral suppliers.   Their reps were consultative reps, doing exactly the same as me.   We know this because that's the way industry works.   We also have documentary proof in the extensive use of coding for both trade prices and piecework rates in factory pattern books in attempts to conceal this information from such reps.

Now compare the Haden, Mullett & Haden advertisement with the illustrations of Nazeing in Timberlake.   Notice similar tooling of the coloured enamels.   Also note the integral foot on the two vases on the left, a common Nazeing feature.   There is enough similarity to suggest the same consultative representative.   If this is true, then the two glassworks were likely to be using the same set of colouring minerals in the same way.

So I don't think that attributing to one or the other today is necessarily as cut and dried as Nigel suggests, indeed it is possible that a few examples attributed today to Nazeing might well be Haden, Mullett & Haden.

Finally it looks as if Haden, Mullett & Haden did not relaunch this range after the war.   I can't help wondering whether Elwell bought up their unsold stock and sold it with Elwell labels!    ;D

... just thinking out loud ...  :angel:

Bernard C.  8)
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: KevinH on January 18, 2012, 04:33:22 PM
Bernard, your comments regarding consultative reps are interesting. I agree that such folk can often have an influence on implementations of basic products. When, in a role of IT Quality Assurance Analyst, I attended a meeting discussing possible use of early touch screen monitors, our thoughts on use of such technology was indeed initially influenced by the reps. However, later, back at base, we considered things further and were mainly influenced by our own standards for implementation and usage, after which we did not buy into that technology.

When it comes to glassworkers using coloured enamels, I question whether the actual usage would have been influenced at all by any consultative representative, beyond confirmation of such things as working temperatures, coefficient of expansion etc.

As for comparisons of the way the enamels are worked in the Haden, Mullett & Haden examples, the Nazeing examples in Timberlake and the vase discussed here, I see no true similarity with the Haden, Mullett & Haden pieces. What I do see is a likeness in the "more cloudy style" of the vase discussed and the majority of the Nazeing equivalents in the book. For the H, M & H examples I see a "more delineated style" rather than "cloudiness" in the patterning. Even the blue vase on the right of Plate 31, page 50 in Timberlake, which has a "delineated" pattern still has "cloudiness" between the "delineated" parts.
Title: Re: Monart? Gray-Stan?
Post by: nigel benson on January 18, 2012, 08:24:20 PM
I'm very much with Kevin here, although there was (and still is) the copying of work from company to company it seems to me most firms wish to have their own twist on things, so try to add something different, or extra, to their version.

Quote
I can't help wondering whether Elwell bought up their unsold stock and sold it with Elwell labels!

For all we know this could be true, indeed Elwell may even have odered work directly from HMH, but sadly we don't know, and wondering is only a red herring - unless of course it can lead us to a way of proving the possibility ;)

Occasionally, as a collector or dealer, regrets set in. For some time I have regreted not buying yet another piece of unknown glass for later identification. I had the opportunity three times to buy, what I now believe were pieces of HMH. Of course I don't know, and can't even prove it without at least one of them. I've been looking out for another ever since the black and white image from the P&GTG became available, but to no avail!

As for comparing the b/w image with either Timberlake images, or the real thing, I don't feel it is that easy. The b/w doesn't show enough detail for good comparison. Moreover, if I am right and I have seen pieces of unidentified HMH, I can assure you that the colour is laid in totally differently to any pieces of known Nazeing.

BTW, the image of the HMH on the bottom right is a different form/shape to the noticeably more squat vase in question in this thread. I would suggest if found in the same catalogue, by the same manufacturer, they would have different pattern numbers.

Nigel