Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: mhgcgolfclub on December 26, 2008, 11:40:20 AM
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KarenR thanks for looking at this bowl
Another cut glass bowl which I found this year, I cannot find the pattern in my limited books I have
Measures about 9" in diameter or 21cm , height 3.75" or 9cm and weighs 2.2 kg
Many thanks Roy
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Roy, I've studied this bowl quite a bit and even with your four photos am not convinced all of the cutting is polished. Maybe it's the way the light is hitting it. The design is striking but I suspect the quality is less than the excellent sweet pea vase you posted in another thread. From the way the line of light reflects over the main miter cuts of the bowl, the blank appears to be figured.
Some photos of the cut side might be helpful.
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I find it's sometimes hard to tell what is polished/unpolished when looking at the cutting from the uncut side of the glass, but I agree some of it (such as the flashing on the pinwheels) looks unpolished. Karen, which photo are you looking at when you say it looks figured?
It would be so nice to find some catalogs from European companies that made ABP-type cut glass! I wonder if Frank has any.
(Karen has undoubtedly seen this, but here's one page (http://www.brilliantglass.com/store/yasemincutglass.aspx) showing some work by Yasemin in Turkey.)
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Really only Roy would be able to tell for sure about the figuring because he can feel the uncut side. In photos 2 and 3 at about the 10 o'clock position where the deep miters cross each other is where I see a disturbance in the reflection line. I don't see it on the other side but it does appear the light source is slightly more directed to the left than the right.
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Thanks for your help so far, I think I would find it very difficult myself to tell if polished or unpolished. I am also not sure what you mean when you say figuring , please help ?, I have added some pictures of the cut side only taken with flash not sure if they will help, if not I will take some tomorrow.
I bought this during the summer for £10.00 which I thought was worth a gamble, although I have never been 100% convinced that it is Brilliant cut, when handling it does seem to feel right feeling quite sharp to handle plus the rim teeth which look OK to me
thanks Roy
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Still a bit hard to tell, but I think it's polished. If it was entirely hand-polished (no acid polishing) it's possible some parts weren't polished to as high a gloss as others. I don't think you'd get same the gleam off any of the flashing if it weren't polished. The teeth are typical ABP, as Roy points out. I don't think the sharpness of the pattern is very good indication of where it was made, but I could be wrong, and there are exceptions. For example, Waterford is fire polished, so their cut patterns aren't as sharp.
A figured blank is one in which part of the design was molded, usually the main, large miters. If it's mold-blown you can often recognize a figured blank by raised areas on the uncut side corresponding to the miters. On pressed pieces that doesn't work, but except for boxes and really odd shapes few ABP pieces were pressed. Figured designs were often cut as well to sharpen them and remove mold traces, so the presence of wheel lines isn't any indication of whether something is figured.
Roy, do you have many cut pieces that you know are European? Karen was telling me she heard that you can tell European cutting by sticking the corner of a business card (or something else that's stiff, with a 90 degree angle) in a large miter cross section. If it fits, it's American, and if the cut is wider, European. I'm skeptical.
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Thanks Kristi for explaining a figured blank, there are no raised areas on the uncut side corresponding to the large miters, I still think It may be polished but do not have enough experience to be sure, I have taken some better picture of the cut side in day light.
I only have one large bowl which I believe is European but does not really tell me anything
Many thanks Roy
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I would gues that this bowl came from Czechoslovakia, glassworks Bohemia, Poděbrady - from 80ties.
I have found same bowl in Poděbrady catalogue from 1982, simmilar but a bit different pattern.
I will check catalogues, but it takes time, please focus your investigation also to this direction.
I did try bowse Czech web sites, I have found only current production with pattern PK500, so rather paperwork than web can help.
Jindrich
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Roy, I've been trying to post some photos here of figured and non-figured blanks but don't wish to permanently reduce the size of my pictures to accommodate the restrictions of this board. I did create a gallery for some of my own glass earlier this year, which still exists, figuring it'd be easier to post them there and give you a link. For some reason I have apparently been banned from using the Glass Gallery so that option is not available either. Oh well.
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Karen, save a copy of your photos first before resizing so your originals remain unchanged.
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This is a Fry "America" pattern celery tray cut on a figured blank, which feels as lumpy as it looks.
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Thanks, Roy, for the additional photos. It does help...I think there are unpolished bits there. The flashing (little spikes between the rays of the pinwheels) and little stars in the diamonds don't look polished. This supports Jindrich's comment:
I would gues that this bowl came from Czechoslovakia, glassworks Bohemia, Poděbrady - from 80ties.
I have found same bowl in Poděbrady catalogue from 1982, simmilar but a bit different pattern.
I will check catalogues, but it takes time, please focus your investigation also to this direction.
I did try bowse Czech web sites, I have found only current production with pattern PK500, so rather paperwork than web can help.
Jindrich
Jindrich! So nice to have you here, you're such a wealth of information! And you actually have catalogues of Czech cut glass, that's great! I wouldn't even have known what company to look for.
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Thanks Karen, Kristi and Jindrich for all your help,
I think I have learnt quite a lot just by buying this bowl and it will be a help when I have to decide wether other items I find at fairs are ABP or are more modern pieces such as this bowl.
I can understand and see what you mean when you say parts are unpolished its something I can look at in the future when deciding wether to buy. I think there are always going to be items I find which may be difficult to decide if they are ABP or European living in the UK, particularly as the amount of ABP cut glass in the UK must be a small fraction of what you have in the USA.
All the pieces I have at the present have been bought for fairs, carboots and charity shops, I have decided to only collect pieces which I find in the UK, hopefully it may be of some help to you in the USA to show what can be found outside the USA , maybe we can only speculate what pieces were sold through retailers or pieces which were bought in the USA and came back to the UK from people visting the USA or moving to the UK
thanks again Roy
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Roy: Either you have an eye for choosing good quality glass or only good quality American cut glass was profitable to export - maybe a bit of both. From what I remember, there has been a Hawkes punch bowl, Buffalo Niagra bowl, Laurel Miriam tray and now your compote/sweet pea vase cut by Meriden. I occasionally search eBay UK for American cut glass and am rarely disappointed - even if nothing American is found, it is interesting to see examples of English cut glass. Although there are "transition" pieces of cut glass prior to the American Brilliant period, generally beginning in 1870, where it is extremely difficult to discern English from American origin, I get the feeling the English have kept their own more refined and elegant style and have never attempted to copy American designs. Many of the founders of the early American cut glass companies immigrated from Europe, especially England and Ireland, bringing their own styles to America. "Rich cut" at least for advertising purposes seems to have meant American cut glass with "brilliant cut" used by the English. An American company by the name of Suffolk Glass Works advertised "rich cut tableware" in 1862 so the 1870 beginning of the American Brilliant period may have begun earlier.
The styles and blank shapes of German and Polish cut glass also appear quite different from American cut glass.
Val St. Lambert's 1908 catalog reprinted by the ACGA contains glass which had been thought to be American until that catalog was discovered. Although written of course in French, it was determined that any of the items in that YSL catalog were available in "cut to clear." There is no mention in American catalogs or advertisements offering cut to clear glass. So, unless a cut to clear piece is cut in a pattern attributable to an American cutting house, Val St. Lambert is usually the first suspect. Val St. Lambert was also a known blank supplier to American cutting companies, as was Baccarat. Black light testing can yield interesting information in this regard.
I believe it's the eastern European companies which have produced the American Brilliant period-like cut glass. If the pinwheel motif originated in America, approximately 1900 would be the earliest a pinwheel piece could have been made. Although pinwheels were beautifully cut by some companies such as Quaker City, this motif is not as popular and in fact avoided by some collectors as it brands it to a time in the American Brilliant period when many other labor-cost saving measures were widely used, such as figured blanks and chemical polishing. Pinwheels were easier to cut than hobstars.
Yasemin advertised it was reproducing old American cut glass. Does anyone know if they are still in business? A well-respected man named Pepi Hermann here in America has been recreating American Brilliant cut glass with his own designs for decades. Counterfeit ABP cut glass was also made - a conspicuous number of very rare patterned pieces appeared on the market in, as I recall, the 1980s. The producer of the glass has never been determined but it was sold primarily by an ex-ACGA member. There were great losses financially and no one knows whether all the counterfeit glass has been discovered. This naturally led to better methods of determining authenticity of American Brilliant cut glass, especially at ACGA-sponsored shows and events, and includes black light testing as one of a number of tools.
A wave of reproduction American Brilliant period cut glass may appear which is produced in China. A prominent ACGA member last year was contacted by a business man who wanted to buy catalogs. It appeared to be on behalf of a Chinese company who was offering to reproduce any pattern in the catalogs desired. Of course the request was refused and is laughable as some catalog pictures are of poor quality and in many cases not all of a pattern can be seen. If the Chinese want American catalogs they can and will find them elsewhere.
I'm hoping Jindra will be able to identify the maker of your bowl. It's an impressive cut glass piece but for reasons I can't quite put my finger on believe it was (eastern) European made.
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The term "richly cut" was used at the time in England. Some motifs, like Russian and cane (I think the latter was originally American anyway), were copied from American glass. Hadjamach even shows a Stourbridge vase with hobstars. I imagine there are a few pieces of English glass that one could mistake for American, but not many.
(The Czech Republic is central, not eastern, European).
Roy certainly does find some wonderful ABP over there!
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Geography is not my specialty, sorry. Yasemin is located in the Black Sea region on the border of Turkey and Russia and was as of 1997 reported to have been sold at their company in Larkspur, Colorado.
I would love to see an English cut Hobstar.
"Richly cut" is different than "rich cut." I don't recall ever running across an American cut glass ad describing "richly cut" glass.
There seem to be many Russian pattern cut English cologne bottles which are difficult to distinguish from American. I have been told subtle differences in shape of the English blanks, not the cutting itself, are about the only clue with these pieces.