Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: Leni on July 28, 2005, 11:23:06 AM
-
Got a new paperweight! :D
I'm fairly sure it's a Strathearn - will show Kevin & the PCC folk this weekend and confirm - but how do I tell its age? :?
I have looked at all my books - not a lot in them on Strathearn, to be honest :roll: - and checked a couple of websites (Kevin's, Frank's for Vasart and Richard More's for later Strathearn) but I am still not sure how to identify which era my new acquisition is from :(
Richard's 'smugmug' site had so many images that my head was spinning and I didn't know how best to learn from what I was seeing :oops:
Is there any way of identifying canes from a particular date, other than years of experience handling hundreds of weights?
Basically, I suppose what I want is something (book or website) which says "these canes are from 19?? to 19?? and then these were introduced around 19?? and these from 19??" Is there anything like that? Or am I asking too much? :oops: :roll:
Leni
-
Bonjour Les Knee
In some respects I think you've answered your own question by looking at the actual images available. Like anything else it is a process of patience and persistence....although not sure on the former but I get the impression you are well stocked up on the latter.....also if I remember correctly from an earlier posting you are fortunate enough to be blessed with instinct
It might help you to go back to Richards site as often as possible and examine and re-examine the weights.
There is a facility provided by Richard, that I've only just noticed today,.....it is that although you click on the image to take you into its own gallery ..but if again you place your cursor over the new image now in the r/hand section you can enlarge it once again so that it displays almost 6" x 6" ... and in my opinion then much easier then to study the individual canes. In the small images they almost become confused by each other and difficult to differentiate.
If at first you limited yourself to the general weights, excluding the dated and signed ones, on Richards site you might make the task less "overwhelming". Later you can move onto others .... a bit like building block construction.
The same obviously applies to any other reference source until the data base is transferred from the source and into your head....and it will..... which is obviously beneficial if you come across a potential buy when you are out and dont have a pc or book to refer to.
The added bonus of course is the buzz you get from the learning process.
:)
Regards
Gareth
Morgan48
-
a photo would be nice Leni
belive it or not i found a strathearn closepack in a shop in Egypt this week :D
-
a photo would be nice Leni
OK Ray, here goes :roll:
http://tinypic.com/9jn9yp.jpg http://tinypic.com/9jnbbd.jpg http://tinypic.com/9jm0bm.jpg
I think it's a P14 or P15 according to Richard More's site. It's about 2.5" or maybe 2.7" in diameter, so I think it is classed as medium.
What puzzled me is the little heart canes. The Vasart heart canes on Frank's site are shown to be solid, but the hearts in this weight have another tiny cane in the centre of them. I think you can see one in the picture, or maybe two, but the picture isn't very good - done in a hurry :roll: - and you may not be able to see the canes in the centre of the hearts.
Another interesting point is that there is absolutely no green glass in the weight at all. :shock: The only canes that look green are actually blue encased in yellow, or yellow encased in blue!
I have looked at 'smugmug' again, until my eyes are boggled - there are over 100 in the F15 category (http://www.smileys.ws/sm/speechless/00000023.gif)
There must be an easier way to date this weight! It's not that I want all the work done for me, just pointing in the right direction! :?
Leni
-
thanks Leni,
here's the one i got in Egypt,
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/refined/th_f7589cba.jpg) (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/refined/f7589cba.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/refined/th_ba81d6b8.jpg) (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/refined/ba81d6b8.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/refined/th_c1a7144e.jpg) (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/refined/c1a7144e.jpg)
-
Wow! :shock: Super! :D
Your pictures showed mine up, Ray, :oops: so I've edited my post to put better pics in.
Fancy finding a Strathearn in Egypt! :? The mind boggles! :shock:
Leni
-
yes Leni the mind does boggle, i was walking past this shop and seen a amberina vase, so i went for a closer look as we all do, it was blenko but the stopper was missing, but the shop had quite alot of bagley glass but nothing special, the shop was like Aladdin's cave for stuff, most of the item's he said was left after the 2nd WW and from around the Howard Carter days in 1922, he has no idea where the weight came from but it's defo not 2nd WW I'd say around the middle 70's
-
Hi,
How to date Strathearn "closepack / carpet" weights that have no date cane ...
It's easy ...
1964 to 1980
Honestly, there is currently no simple way to give an accurate date to any of the regular production, undated, weights. They were made in their thousands and there are probably many hundreds of individual canes that could be found in these weights.
I did once ask Richard if he would consider making up a table of individual canes from at least his dated weights, rather like the tables I started for my signed Paul Ysart ones. Not surprisingly, he declined on the basis of not having the time to achieve such a mammoth task.
By producing a cane reference we might be able to see something that helps to define a period. Until then, there is no way to know - except for certain types of cane that do seem to be later production (last two or three years perhaps), but in Leni's and Ray's weights shown, there are none of these "later types".
Maybe, if I could get my hands on as many Strathearn weights as Richard has, I would have a go at tabling all the canes - but then I have still not got around to adding all the canes from my unsigned Ysart weights.
One day ... maybe ...
-
Within the worlds of voices how loudy silence speaks... and says so much.
Gareth
-
Hmmm. So, Kevin, you seem to be saying there is no way of telling if a Strathearn weight was made in 1964 or in 1980 :?
But in my observations I have noticed a great variety in the quality of Strathearn canes, some quite small and detailed and others quite large and simple - those I tend to call the 'dolly mixture' type. Are you saying that there is no distinction between these? That *all* these canes were likely to have been used at any time throughout the '60's and '70's?
If I have understood you, it is only possible to say that if a weight has Vasart canes it is likely to be early, and if it has some of the identifyably later canes it is likely to be - obviously enough :roll: - late, right?
Do you know if there is a book I could get, or is it best, as Gareth suggests, to just keep looking at Richard's website?
And Gareth, what you say about silence is very true. However, being thick again :oops: , I'm afraid I don't see what you mean by it in this context. Care to explain?
Leni
-
Sorry, was distracted and forgot to log in :oops:
Leni
-
Leni,
Your conclusions about what I have said and what you have seen are on the right lines but not quite accurate.
Yes, there were many better quality Strathearn canes as well as many not so good ones. A later weight might contain all not so good ones, or it could be full of only better ones, or a mixture, in varying degrees, of both.
And also, if known early Vasart canes are seen in a Strathearn weight, it might still be an older (mid 60s) or a later one (late 70s to 80). The early Vasart canes, from the 1940s (and, dare I say it, [well, I will say it at Perth!] perhaps even the 1930s?) are found in items throughout the whole period of Vasart / Strathearn and are also seen in what I believe to be other, and even later, studio work. Those canes travelled around a great deal!
However, I cannot say beyond doubt that canes which I, and other collectors, consider to be later Strathearn cane types, are always so. It's a bit like discussions, over the years, on "Vasart" versus "Paul Ysart" canes - we are now realising that there were lots of very good quality early "Vasart" ones.
Regarding your question about a book (to assist with dating of Strathearn weights?), even the excellent coverage given by John Simmonds in Paperweights from Great Britain, 1930-2000 (which includes a listing of most of the Strathearn design numbers) and by Bob Hall in Scottish Paperweights do not cover details that offer much help with dating by visual means.
This is why I would really like for somebody, some day, to provide a whole range of dated Strathearns from which we could collate a sizeable table of the canes. That might help - or it might prove nothing. Whatever it might do, it will be a massive undertaking :!:
In the meantime, do make use of Richard's galleries. His ordering by dateable items is very useful and is the beginning of what I mentioned for tabulating the canes. But I will agree with anyone that it is not easy, even with dated categories, to discover whether a particular cane or cane type was, or was not, used in a particular period.
Oh, isn't it fun :D
-
Oh, isn't it fun :D
:lol: In a masochistic kinda way, I s'pose! (http://www.websmileys.com/sm/fingers/fing28.gif)
Leni :wink:
-
Today (well, yesterday, as it it's now early am), I spoke to somebody in the UK who has a lot of Strathearns - plenty of "closepack" weights with many canes.
We have agreed to a session. I will aim to photograph as many as I can and then to produce tables of the individual canes.
This will not happen very quickly as we are both tied up until mid September or so, and then it may take me several weeks to get the results into shape.
Having said it would be good if somebody could to do it ... well ... watch this, or some similar virtual space ...
-
We have agreed to a session. I will aim to photograph as many as I can and then to produce tables of the individual canes.
:D Kevin, You're a hero! (http://www.websmileys.com/sm/love/246.gif)
Leni xx