Topic: They look like Walsh tumblers, but are they?

[Bernard C]

I've recently bought a lovely pair of early '30s Walsh decanters with two matching glasses.   The decanters are transitional between A5170 (Reynolds fig.304) and A5227 (fig.307), at first sight very similar to A5170 but with two major Clyne Farquharson innovations appearing for the first time:

The two rows of flake cuts around the neck are not offset and interlocking, but line up, producing a row of slightly incurved diamond shapes in between, which look amazing through the glass, and

The stoppers are his new elongated shape, first appearing in the factory pattern books on the similar decanter A5227.

The glasses look like standard 4½" tumblers, until you pick them up.   Contemporary Walsh tumblers like A5148 (fig.303) weigh about 5oz 140g.   One of these glasses weighs in at a massive 1lb 2¼oz 517g, the other only slightly less, also with significantly reduced capacity, almost like deceptive toastmaster glasses!

So, down to my question, are they tumblers?   Or are they something you would expect to be more weighty, like a '30s style of whisky glass?   Is today's squat whisky glass a fairly recent innovation?

Bernard C.  

[Lustrousstone]

I'm not quite sure what your question is. A tumbler is simply defined as a glass with straight sides and no handle. If they match your decanter, I would say they were for whisky; there isn't much else you you drink that you decant and that requires extra room in the glass for mixer or aroma, except perhaps gin or rum. This old glass weighs in at 400g and it's slightly smaller http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,12792.0.html

[Bernard C]

...   A tumbler is simply defined as a glass with straight sides and no handle.   ...

Ah, thanks Christine.   I hadn't appreciated that definition of a tumbler, always assuming that the term included its use for a long drink like water or lemonade.   Therefore my Walsh pair must be whisky tumblers.   I'll describe them as such on my label and wait for someone to tell me I'm wrong.   

Bernard C. 

[nigel benson]

A tumbler is simply defined as a glass with straight sides and no handle.

Christine, may I ask, is this a dictionary definition, one from a glass book, or your own?

Many thanks, Nigel

[Ivo]

That is a dictionary definition, Nigel. 

a flat-bottomed drinking cup without a stem or handle, usually of glass or plastic;

(Chambers)

[nigel benson]

Thank you Ivo, you make the point admirably - no mention of straight sides, as in Christine's definition.

That is why I asked she got the definition from.

Nigel

[Lustrousstone]

Source New Oxford Dictionary of English

[nigel benson]

Thanks - for the confirmation, and its source.

Nigel