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Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Unresolved Glass Queries => Topic started by: ckscot on February 16, 2008, 04:42:45 PM

Title: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: ckscot on February 16, 2008, 04:42:45 PM
I bought this a couple of years ago thinking it might be Whitefriars, but it's not one of their colours.  So does anyone recognise this? It's about 27 cm (10.5") in diameter, 5 cm(2") high and 2 mm thick, in this glorious pink colour.  Has ground pontil.   Any info or suggestions appreciated.
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Bernard C on February 17, 2008, 08:02:38 AM
Iain — I'm not really sure what I am looking at.   Any chance of photographs against backgrounds with more contrast?   You might try black, white, or clear blue sky, for example.

How about its weight, either absolutely, or, preferably, relative to something most of us know, like, say, a similarly sized Tom Hill 5-sided?

... and base wear?

Bernard C.  8)
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: ckscot on February 17, 2008, 10:51:14 AM
Here are some more photos, hopefully clearer than before.  I'm not surprised that you're  not sure what you are looking at, it seems an odd piece to me, certainly odd to describe, to say it's "hanging sided" doesn't really work but language fails me......When I photograph it outdoors against the sky it looks like a pink alien spaceship but I'm not sure that will help anyone either!

As for weight, it's 1.2kg which is very slightly lighter than a Tom Hill 11.5" shallow ribbon-trailed bowl (1.3kg).  There is enough base wear to suggest age, as well as the odd scratch, it certainly doesn't feel or look like a new piece.  Hope that helps give you a fuller picture.
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Lustrousstone on February 17, 2008, 11:08:22 AM
Another member of the mushroom bowl. club See here http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,18892.0.html (http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,18892.0.html) and its associated links
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: johnphilip on February 17, 2008, 11:22:38 AM
Hi Iain Whitefriars did do a pink colour quite rare and not known by many,You can ask for more info on W/Fs.com or.org .
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: ckscot on February 17, 2008, 01:09:23 PM
The mushroom bowl thread is very helpful thanks, I can also see that mushroom bowl sounds more useful as a description than hanging sided or alien spaceship.  I can see the resemblance with the others, the 'mushroom cap' especially, and I have seen some of these before, but mine is bigger and because of the way it opens out, it clearly hasn't been designed to hold posies unlike the others.
I'll try over on the W/F site as well to see what they say.
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Bernard C on February 18, 2008, 08:52:32 AM
Quote from: ckscot
... it clearly hasn't been designed to hold posies unlike the others. ...

Iain — not necessarily.   We know that Davidson sold their flower blocks separately to other glass houses, as, although evidence of this is scarce, we know that John Walsh Walsh bought them in for use in their bowls / vases, and Liberty's added them to some of their Monart bowls.   So they were, in effect, standard industry components, much like de-luxe epergne blocks, made by one specialist, but available to all.

So your mushroom posy could have been designed to take a flower block, probably a Davidson No. 8 semi-dome or a No. 1 round block, see here (http://www.cloudglass.com/Frogs.htm), and, if you want to see what a small world it is, mouseover the accompanying photographs.

... and I've been asked to explain "Tom Hill 5-sided".   It's a Whitefriars bowl, pattern 9090, and it's got five sides, unsurprisingly!   See here (http://whitefriars.com/catalogues/contents.php?id=10360).

Bernard C.  8)
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Lustrousstone on February 18, 2008, 09:52:24 AM
I also suspect quite large flowerheads on short stems would wedge quite nicely without any support. It must have been the fashion as there are dozens of posy designs with and without frogs, but for short stems, but how many short flowers are there?
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: ckscot on February 18, 2008, 12:56:23 PM
Thanks for all that Bernard, looks like you have (have had?) quite a collection of frogs. I have a few posy bowls myself - Bagley, and Carlton ceramic ones mostly, but I'm not yet quite 100% convinced that my pink one is part of that club.  I can see that a frog would fit  but not too neatly, and my, admittedly limited, exposure to frogs suggests they are a bit too 'clumpy' for this bowl.  But I suppose that, covered in flowers the frog wouldn't be seen. 
And yes, large flowerheads would sit in it, but I would have expected a sharper edge delineating the side from the base to make that a comfortable wedge, if that makes sense. Certainly no sign of wear on the inside where a frog would have sat.

By the way Bernard, you sound like the very person to also explain why they are called frogs!!
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Lustrousstone on February 18, 2008, 01:43:09 PM
Bernard will tell you they shouldn't be called  frogs...  ;D
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: ckscot on February 18, 2008, 05:12:52 PM
Oh good!  I look forward to that.  'Blocks' sounds so much more descriptive anyway.
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Bernard C on February 18, 2008, 06:14:09 PM
Quote from: ckscot
... By the way Bernard, you sound like the very person to also explain why they are called f***s!!

Iain — No, not me.   Christine was almost on the right lines.   See here (http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,2463.msg18229.html#msg18229) and follow the links for more.

As you will have surmised, I don't use the dreaded f-word, at least not in polite company.

Bernard C.  8)
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: ckscot on February 18, 2008, 08:50:49 PM
I see the F word has spawned (sorry) an awful lot of comment on this board before now.  ::)
I can understand, Bernard, why you wouldn't use it in polite company but it sounds as if the B word is just as indelicate. 
And I am none the wiser about who might have made my lovely piece. Cheers, Iain
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Sklounion on February 18, 2008, 09:25:10 PM
Interesting discussion in both these threads.... and raises the question as to what exactly the terminology is, and what role it serves.
Here we have an item, which does not appear to have a proper term, a No.1 (Davidson)  or a part number 1634/I (Libochovice) or whatever. We choose to define this item, using terms by which we may recognise what is meant. I agree with Bernard, that to talk of a pelican frog is ridiculous. But having looked at several centrepieces, both two-piece and one-piece, maybe, just maybe, "frog", is a corruption of frock. I ask, as it might be more appropriate, to talk of centrepiece and seperate frock, as arguably, that is what some appear to resemble, or centrepiece with integral frock. However, the OED, does give to the word frog, the definition of a support....for bayonets and swords, and that may be also why these items are so described.
Sadly, too little attention is paid these days, to recording both the coining of terminology,  and its subsequent use, development and corruption, which, were it considered more carefully, would allow us to understand where, and how, certain uses of language derived, and its proper meaning.
jmho,
Marcus
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: skay on February 18, 2008, 10:42:43 PM
I, perhaps wrongly, assumed that a frog was called so because it sat half in water?

 :-\

xx
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Frank on February 18, 2008, 11:06:58 PM
Has anyone ever checked to root in OED? Collins 97 define it as any spiked or perforated object used to support plant stems in a flower arrangement, but it gives no source. OED might at least give earliest use perhaps.

Concise OED does give some hints but only perhaps:
• noun 1 a thing used to hold or fasten something. 2 an ornamental coat fastener consisting of a spindle-shaped button and a loop.

  — ORIGIN perhaps a use of FROG1, influenced by Italian forchetta or French fourchette ‘small fork’, because of the shape.
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Sklounion on February 18, 2008, 11:49:47 PM
Specifically as to its application to the glass item, the term "frog" remains shrouded in mist... like a frog on a lily-pad...
the possible sources are there, but, by whom, why, where and to what, and when, was the term applied?? Those answers are open to every creative solution dreamed of by the human race.....
Regards,
Marcus
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Bernard C on February 19, 2008, 06:21:03 AM
Frank, Marcus et al — Please exercise caution when checking specialist words in major dictionaries.

In December 1993 I wrote to both Chambers and Oxford about what they had as codswallop, and we all know should be coddswallop.   No response then, and no correction since.   This is a word from spoken English, which a dictionary compiler or some other person had collected and recorded without properly checking the spelling.   It should have been provisionally labelled both origin unknown and spelling uncertain until a glass or bottle historian filled in the details.   But it wasn't, and so the error continues, and the longer it continues, apparently the greater the reluctance to correct it.

Marver, as a verb, is absent from my Chambers, and probably from OED.   Yet we happily use it here as a verb, for example:- The opal rods were marvered into the surface.

Just two examples.   I am sure that there are many more.

Bernard C.  8)
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Sklounion on February 19, 2008, 08:32:54 AM
Hi Bernard,
Marver exists as both noun and verb in the OED, noun for the table on which glass is rolled, verb as the act of rolling glass on said table, date given for first usage 1866, in the Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts, by Tomlinson.
Regards,
Marcus
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Frank on February 19, 2008, 09:55:09 AM
Someone somewhere did put this use into a dictionary and Collins care not about the material but the function. Perhaps it was a term used in the florist industry and occurs somewhere in a catalogue. The uise for a clothes fastening is obvious as those cord loops had the shape of a frog. The term is also used for the depression in bricks and that bears no relationship to the critter.

Anyway I have no time to hunt the source so will leave this subject now, but will keep an eye on updates.
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Anne on February 19, 2008, 01:34:40 PM
Connie Swaim's article on flower frogs is worth a read: http://www.bullworks.net/ffg/articles/swaim.html - it doesn't give the origin/etymology, but is interesting, nonetheless.
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Carolyn Preston on February 20, 2008, 01:10:17 AM
Frank, Marcus et al — Please exercise caution when checking specialist words in major dictionaries.

In December 1993 I wrote to both Chambers and Oxford about what they had as codswallop, and we all know should be coddswallop.   

Actually, I had no idea. I thought it meant a load of what might be referred to as bovine excrement. As in "what she said was a lot of cod(d?)swallop". What does it really mean and what does it have to do with glass (if it is not obvious by the definition.

codswallop
said to be from 19c. (but first attested 1963), perhaps from wallop, British slang for "beer," and cod in one of its various senses, perhaps "testicles."

codswallop. (n.d.). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved February 19, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/codswallop

Carolyn
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Anne on February 20, 2008, 01:31:44 AM
Here you are Carolyn, all about Hiram Codd and his glass-bottled wallop. ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codswallop
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Carolyn Preston on February 20, 2008, 01:35:49 AM
Here you are Carolyn, all about Hiram Codd and his glass-bottled wallop. ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codswallop

Well, what do you know. We're both right and I've learnt something new today. All is good.  :hiclp: :chky:

Carolyn
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Sue C on February 20, 2008, 08:20:02 AM
Also a interesting article on the cloud glass web site   http://www.cloudglass.com/Frogs.htm
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Adam on February 20, 2008, 02:03:39 PM
I had never heard the term "frog" (in this context!) until I joined this Board.  Sowerbys, Davidsons and, I think, the rest of the North East pressed glass industry certainly didn't use the word.  The round or oval, chunky or cauliflower-shaped things with holes through them were called flower blocks, always abbreviated to blocks.  Everything else, whether flat discs with holes or star shaped or shaped like a DIY fire escape or with a lady sitting on top was called a flower holder, usually just holder.

Whether the word frog was used before my time and has been resurrected or came from some other part of the industry (or pottery?) or whether block and holder were too boring for the trendies who took over the world later I know not!

Adam D.
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Adam on February 20, 2008, 02:12:25 PM
P.S. - My wife prefers screwed-up chicken wire.

Adam D.
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Bernard C on February 20, 2008, 02:23:28 PM
And, how, may I ask, does your ingenious wife obtain wire from screwed-up, presumably battery, chickens?

Bernard C.  8)
Title: Re: Large Hanging-sided Pink Bowl
Post by: Frank on February 20, 2008, 06:12:25 PM
 ;D Interesting article Anne

That eventually lead to an 1962 advert using the term http://www.bullworks.net/ffg/downsco/downsco1962.html but that seems to be the only example. The earlier patents cited all use the term 'flower arranger'.

I suppose that collectors adopted the term from somewhere to give a generic term for all the different terms that can seen on the various sites and with such a following, not just for glass ones, I would have thought it reasonable as a generic term but not so reasonable when discussing individual examples where known catalogue use other terms. But having been in use for at least 46 years surely it has qualified as 'common usage'. Even if its root was the inspiration of a marketing person somewhere.

The IT world is riddled with newly invented and often obnoxious terminology that is rapidly added to dictionaries. Often with no relation to what the thing is being described.