Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => British & Irish Glass => Topic started by: Lustrousstone on January 09, 2006, 09:06:48 PM
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No I don't mean me! 8)
Picked this up in a local charity shop and was surprised to discover it had a registered number on the bottom - 796404.
flower pot (http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b217/lustrousstone/PDR_0004_edited-1.jpg)
base (http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b217/lustrousstone/PDR_0005_edited-1.jpg)
I've pinned the registration date down to 1930/31 but not to who. Can anyone help please? It also has UCB on the bottom, which I think may be UCB Chemicals of Belgium. They are involved in glass maufacture, although currently fibreglass and laminated glass.
Has anyone else found anything like it? It's 12 cm diameter and height, near enough a standard 5 inch pot.
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796404 is by the United Glass Bottle Co (it'll be UGB not UCB) registered on 18/09/1934 (source: The Glass Association, Registration Numbers 1908-1945 - collquially referred to as the Blue Book). Hope this helps. :)
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Thank you Anne, that makes sense as it is bottle brown! The G has a very tiny upright!
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Christine, I have a Kingfisher decorated bowl made by the same company, and funnily enough it looks a similar amber colour to your planter. Here's the link with some interesting info.
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,3714.0.html
Anne E.B. :wink:
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Thanks for those links Anne. Looks like my flowerpot never got to see much of the world, as I found it less than 10 miles from Ravenhead/ Sherdley in Widnes. I presume there would have been a matching saucer to catch the water.
UBG were obviously trying to get into all sorts of markets. How big is your kingfisher bowl? Maybe it's a planter for a flowerpot; the raised circles could be for helping to prevent waterlogging.
Have you ever been to World of Glass at St Helen's? I need to go again and look at it with new eyes, having discovered glass :D
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Hi Christine. My hexagonal bowl is quite big - 9.5" at its widest. However, the base is 6.5" at its widest, and each side measures just over 3" long. What it was originally intended for, I just don't know. It lately occurred to me that it might have originally been a container of some kind with a lid. The raised circles are basically just slightly raised marks on the bottom, I imagine where the bowl has been held in place when being made. It could be a bowl to hold a smaller flower pot in, or just a bog standard multi-purpose bowl. Getting hold of a trade catalogue would perhaps be the only answer, or access to archives. I think it would look fab. on a plinth, so I'm on the look out for one. There's an amber hexag. plinth (Davidson's) on ebay currently, but I checked the size and it was too small, so I'm on the lookout for a larger one.
I live near a book seller/dealer who also stocks old magazines and such. I thought it might be interesting some time to have a look through some to see if there are any retailer advertisements for glass. Thats my new project :P
Haven't been to the World of Glass at St.Helens. Sounds an interesting place. May be one for the summer.
Anne E.B. :P
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Just for interest - and connected to United Glass Bottle Co. I've just bought this set of old Bovril bottles :roll: . They have BOVRIL LIMITED impressed on the sides along with the weight in ounces. On the two larger ones is a pattern/reference number and UGB on the base of one.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y195/glassie/bovril002.jpg
I don't actually remember this type of Bovril bottle with its long neck, which presumably was for pouring. Does anyone remember these (meant in the nicest possible way :lol: ) and when would they have been in use? Would they have had a stopper of some kind?
The amber colour is identical to my UGB kingfisher bowl, and I bet Christine's planter too. :P
Anne E.B. :wink:
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Oh Anne, they're interesting. I don't remember them that shape at all. They've always been the squat rounder ones that I recall seeing.
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Me too. I seem to recall ones with a metal screw on top, so they were more like jars, unlike these which are more bottle like and have no 'thread' for a screw on lid. I've looked thru' my collectables books and have spotted old advertisements/posters for OXO showing tins, but nothing for Bovril. A bit of googling is in order I think :shock:
Regards - t'other Anne :wink:
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A google turned up some interesting info. Bovril was invented by James Lawson Johnston, a Scot in 1870-1 in response to the need for cans of beef for Napoleon's army. Johnston developed "essence of liquid cow" :?
and eventually set up a factory in Shoreditch in 1884. Because of the BSE scare in 2004, the recipe was changed to yeast extract. Uniliver now own Bovril.
Old posters shown on the web look to be around late Victorian/early Edwardian times and show the bottles or jars with the longer neck. They have red paper labels, much in the same way that they still do now.
Quite a few are for sale on ebay. Some have threads for a screw on top, others like mine don't. A large old Bovril jar currently for sale has "Made by Forster's Glass Co." impressed on the base instead.
I think I'll contact Unilever to see if they can help date the bottles.
I don't think I can ever think of Bovril now without thinking of "liquid cow" :? Yeeeuk!
Anne E.B. :wink:
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for Napoleon's army
That would have been Napoleon III not the other, more famous, Napoleon Bonaparte (who died in 1821). 1870-71 was the Franco-Prussian war and Napoleon III along with his son Eugene went off to fight. Napoleon III died in 1873 and Eugene in 1879. I don't think there was a connection between their deaths and the invention of Bovril! :lol:
I never liked Bovril though - was very strong tasting stuff. Now Marmite (on toast with a wedge of cheese!) is an entirely different matter. :)
Some more on Bovril from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovril
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Anne E. B. - Thank you for the information on Bovril. You helped me in my real life job and just made future British travelers to America very happy :wink:
Bovril has been prohibited in the US because of BSE. No one ever mentioned the change in formulation :shock:
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Happy to oblige (if quite by accident) Connie.
You might find this link useful. Its for Unilever who make/market Bovril. There's also a contact number.
http://www.unilever.co.uk/ourbrands/foods/bovril.asp
Regards - Anne E.B.
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Hi, Christine.
Thought you might be interested in one of my recent purchases - very similar in shape and size to your flower pot and with the same registration number, but with panelled rather than plain sides. And you were right about the matching saucer.
plant pot: http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-8507 (http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-8507)
base: http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-8508 (http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-8508)
I have one of the kingfisher bowls too and they're definitely the same shade of brown.
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I have one of the tall neck Bovrils with "Rd. 100848", which is 1888 according to http://www.great-glass.co.uk/glass%20notes/numbers.htm, also embossed on either curved side is "Bovril Limited", I believe the 'limited' makes this a little later model than the design. Both sides have sunken panels about the only difference from Annes. The underside has a moulded letter J... mould code or makers mark?
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That's a nice one Heidi, might mean the registration was of the 'flowerpot' bottom, rather than of the glass flower pot if the saucer isn't marked
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It is sweet, isn't it? I'm thinking of using it for the orchid I got from the table displays at my brother's wedding.
You could be right about the flowerpot bottom - there's no registration mark on the saucer. But - have just double-checked and there's a very small number 7 on the saucer and a corresponding 8 on the pot. A pattern number, perhaps?
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Can't check mine, it went to a collector of gardening stuff