Topic: Identifying marks on glass fishing floats

[Angela B]

Can anyone help us identify some of the marks on glass fishing floats in this article, which Tom Rizzo and I have just posted on the Glass Museum? - http://www.theglassmuseum.com/fishingfloats.htm
Marks that haven't been identified include two different anchors, an L, British Made with a star,  J.M.S.,  a G,  EXTRA RG Portugal, and the letters S and N intertwined.
Any help with references or documents that can identify these marks would be very much appreciated.
Many thanks
Angela

[Pinkspoons]

Just a thought, but might the 'F' numbers on the Flesland floats refer to the glass plant/furnace they were made in? I know Holmegaard used to refer to theirs as such (Kastrup og Holmegaards Glasværker 1825-1975 refers to the F5 plant opening at the factory in 1972), so possibly it was common in Scandinavia.

[seahermit]

Pinkspoons that was a very interesting question that you've posed, and is an angle which had never crossed my mind concerning markings.  Thank you for that insight.  Who knows where it might lead in the search for the meanings of glass bottle, float, etc. markings?
A bit of extra information that I have encountered about those Norwegian F-numbered floats.  The F1 through F3 have been the most common marked floats to appear on the auctions and in collections.  I have examples of 2.5", 4.5", 5.0" and 8" diameter floats with the F-numbered markings.  The larger 8" floats have been the hardest to come by, and the numbers F4-F8 are harder to come by in any size.  I have yet to see those numbers on the smallest diameter floats.

[Pinkspoons]

That might tie in with the furnace theory - if furnaces 4 through 8 were added as the factory expanded they would have produced less glass than the others before the factory closed. Also, I assume, different furnaces would have had different tasks, so the lower, older furnaces might have been assigned only the smaller floats after the construction of the newer ones.

At Kastrup and Holmegaard, whenever new plants and factories were built or acquired a reorganisiation of what was produced, and where, always followed.

In relation to Flesland it's all pure conjecture, obviously, and based only on my knowledge of Danish factory glass - the same logic might not transfer to other factories.

[Angela B]

Hi Pinkspoons,
Thank you very much for the extra information. I know Tom (seahermit) is really keen to gather every idea that people here have about those makers marks and their identification. Some of them, like the intertwined S and N, should surely be recognised by someone. But I have been through all my makers mark books and my bottle makers books and found very very little. We have one very promising lead from Stephen Pollock-Hill of Nazeing Glass, as Nazeing Glass made glass floats in the 1950s. There may well be other glassworks still operating that have records of making glass fishing floats in the past. Any help at all is very very much appreciated.
http://www.theglassmuseum.com/fishingfloats.htm