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Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: dinklepip on April 14, 2012, 12:22:56 PM

Title: Victorian Dump Weight?
Post by: dinklepip on April 14, 2012, 12:22:56 PM
Very dumpy in appearance, design looks very tornado lol.  any ideas on age and origin please
Title: Re: Victorian Dump Weight?
Post by: keith on April 14, 2012, 01:43:54 PM
Looks late victorian to me,could come from anywhere in the UK  ;D ;D
Title: Re: Victorian Dump Weight?
Post by: Hourglass on April 14, 2012, 05:28:28 PM
This green glass was bottle glass and any left over at the end of a days production would have either been used up in this form or melted down at the begining of the next day for producing more bottles, 'dumped' glass, hence the term. The glass workers must have had time on their hand as it would not have been a five minute job to produce these weights, especially those that had the inclusions such as the 'flowerpot' and 'flower' designs, this I believe was achieved using baking powder. The most well known and largest glass manufacturer in Victorian times and later was that of Stourbridge but could have come out of any of the UK glass manufacturers. Has anyone ever compiled a list of UK glass manufacturers, in the commercial sense I mean, bottle manufacturing and domestic glass wares?  Forgot to say, there are differences in these old weights, ranging from varying depths of green through pale blues to clear but beware, there are fakes on the market and these can usually be identified by being too 'clean', more regular surface with a smaller broken pontil whereas the genuine ones have a more irregular slightly 'wavy' or striated surface that look like 'rings' and the pontil looks like it's been smashed off and often contains black deposits in the crevices like sooty marks and also when stood on the pontil don't stand straight.
Title: Re: Victorian Dump Weight?
Post by: KevinH on April 15, 2012, 10:57:39 PM
Although workers at Stourbridge companies would very likely have produced many of the bottle glass Dumps, such items were very probably also made at many companies throughout Great Britain.

And there is good reason to consider that not all of the items were "friggers" (personal items as opposed to production pieces). There are many examples known with an impressed makers mark to the base, such as "Kilner" or "Redfern", from Yorkshire, which could very easily have been production items.
Title: Re: Victorian Dump Weight?
Post by: Hourglass on April 16, 2012, 08:06:43 PM
Yes, I forgot to mention Kilner. I did here somwhere that Kilner produced the majority of the green glass 'dumps' as they predominately  produced the jars and bottles with this same glass, and that the workers were allowed to use up the 'end of day' molten glass that was still in the furnaces to produce things for themselves for wich they could sell to make a little 'pocket money' or keep for themselves.
Title: Re: Victorian Dump Weight?
Post by: stew2u2 on April 19, 2012, 05:14:10 PM
why do you always see them in green when some bottle glass was brown ect
Title: Re: Victorian Dump Weight?
Post by: Lustrousstone on April 19, 2012, 07:04:16 PM
They aren't really green, as such. The bottles the glass was used for would only have appeared slightly coloured. It was made using sand containing iron and without a decoloriser. Brown bottle glass used for paperweights would made them just big very dark blobs.
Title: Re: Victorian Dump Weight?
Post by: cfosterk on April 23, 2012, 09:37:09 PM
'MANY' Kilner weights - really?

I have five, all pretty special as they have coloured inclusions usually the stamen part of the flower - red most common but also turquoise and cobalt.

Genuine Kilner weights havean impressed mark to the base, almost looks like a wafer inserted base on two weights to be honest.

I think Castleford was a major production area for glass bottles and as such 'Dump' paperweights.

Very naive but thats part of their charm.