Topic: Anyone have an idea on the age/country of this flint glass champagne flute?

[mrvaselineglass]

This champagne flute is made from uranium glass.  The color in the left photo is accurate.  It seems to have a pretty high level of uranium in it, making it more of a honey amber or yellow-olive color.  The pontil is a snap-off.  The glass has a high lead contact, ringing for several seconds after 'flicked'.  Height is exactly 7.5" (19.2 cm).  top rim diameter is 2.5" (6.3 cm).  bottom foot is 3 5/8" (9.1 cm).  there is a bubble in the lower stem, separate from the top flute.  It appears to have been in 3 parts. 

http://www.vaselineglass.org/flintflute.jpg

Any help would be greatly appreciated
Dave Peterson
(aka: Mr. Vaseline Glass)

[pamela]

No idea I'm afraid, but OOOOOOLD in any case!

[Ivo]

Not as old as the foot suggests if it is full of uranium oxide!

[Lustrousstone]

 :mrgreen: :mrgreen:  It looks very high quality - very symmetric. But is it flint? Perhaps less old trying to look very old IYSWIM. That might explain the slightly odd colour, perhaps they were aiming at canary flint (a la Boston and Sandwich) and using lead crystal. Perhaps the olive colour is what they were after. I dunno... :huh:

[mrvaselineglass]

Ivo, there are reports of uranium oxide/dioxide being used as early as the early 1830s.  Other than the 'ring test', how else could you test for flint?  It has a sustained bell tone ring when flicked. 

[Ivo]

I merely suggested that an 18th century domed and folded foot does not combine logically with a 19th century colouring agent. So even if the technique suggests it is older, on no account can it predate 1830. It is also not a specific champagne glass - the flute is a normal drinking vessel for wines.

[mrvaselineglass]

I realize that the shape is not specific for champagne.  What I don't know is if the shape was still being used into the early 1800s, to include up to the earliest time period that this could have been made.  For example, I once owned a pair of french lacy open salt dishes in yellow uranium/canary.  The window for lacey glass salts is generally considered to have finished up by 1845, so this pair of salts were made near the end of the lacey glass period.  I thought this might also be the case with this wine glass.  

The color of this wine glass is sort of odd, but it also matches a swan open salt I own that has a 'lemon squeezer' foot, which was primarily used during a 1790-1820 period, but yet, the swan also uses uranium as a colorant.   I don't have a side-by-side photo of the two pieces in the same picture, but the colors are identical when the two pieces are side-by-side.  (the mystery just gets deeper)

here is a pic of the lemon-squeezer swan salt.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3373/3340425250_9d8f9009d3_o.jpg

(when I first bought this salt, I was at the annual Harrisburg, PA, glass show and I showed it to Jeff Evans, who was the auctioneer/owner of Green Valley Auctions.  He has handled a lot of glass over the years and has set several records for amounts received on individual pressed glass pieces from this time period.  He looked at the swan and based on it's construction and other attributes, gave a time estimate of '2nd quarter of the 19th century'  (1825-1850).