Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => Germany => Topic started by: ian.macky on February 18, 2018, 12:47:50 AM
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Can anyone tell me what the glass color "hell halbweiss" might be? It's the cheapest color listed in Falconnier glass brick catalogs, and since the default/common glass color is the usual sort of light aqua, I assume that's what it refers to. True clear glass ("weiss") is more expensive.
Danke...
--ian
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Literally it translates to bright half white so I wondered if it means opaque rather than clear?
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Literally it translates to bright half white so I wondered if it means opaque rather than clear?
AFAIK the only opaque bricks were in milkglass, listed in the catalog as "opal" or "milchweiss".
I also notice my other catalog lists the basic color as just "halbweiss", not "hell halbweiss"; presumably these were the same thing and the "hell" was just marketing-fluffery.
--ian
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Hmmm it could be, Ian. I asked Dirk about it and gave him the link to this topic so I hope he might pop over and add a comment.
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Hiya,
to be honest it was a term I hadn´t heard of, but it seems I may have found the answer.
It appears to be the technical term for glass, which isn´t perfectly clear, but has the typical tinge
of e.g. recycled glass.
So it should have the typical greenish tinge to it.
http://glas-freital.com/index.php/flaschen/weinflaschen/bordeauxflaschen/weitere-bordeauxflaschen/bordeaux-allegee-bm
In german sometimes the term ´weiß´ (white) is used synonymically with ´klar´ (clear).
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That's very helpful, thanks Dirk. It seems to support what Ian was thinking as well.
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It appears to be the technical term for glass, which isn´t perfectly clear, but has the typical tinge of e.g. recycled glass. So it should have the typical greenish tinge to it.
Thank you; that fits. glas-freital.com isn't responding, but the wayback machine has the pages: they list three colors for their 750 ml Bordeaux Allegee BM: weiß, halbweiß and lichtgrün.
In german sometimes the term ´weiß´ (white) is used synonymically with ´klar´ (clear).
Would there be a distinction between klar and krystall, i.e. degree of clarity? I'm inclined to think this is just more marketing.
In the insulator world, when they wanted a colorless glass, and used "glassmaker's soap" (manganese dioxide) instead of expensive and rare pure silica sand, they ended up with what collectors call "off-clear": colorless, but not really clear, since the manganese added a purple tint which just countered the greenish tint caused by iron contamination (and both tints were subtractive). Off-clear is sort of very light gray, if you can picture that in glass (a couple examples attached).
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The synonymical use of the the term white for clear would only work in one direction, so a clear
item would sometimes possibly be called white, but never vice versa.
I think the word ´kristall´ would always implicate a stronger clearness than just ´klar´. There would
also be the word ´kristallklar´ (crystal clear) in german with the same meaning as in english; this
can also be used in a figurative way.