Topic: British? 1 + 6 cut decanter + glasses - ID = Whitefriars C438 Sherry Set

[Bernard C]

Mid C20 Cut Crystal Decanter + Glasses Set

Click any image to enlarge in new window

Help, please, with attribution, date range, pattern number and/or name, and any other information.   Tricky, this one, as the three row interlocking diamond pattern was made by most or all of the larger British cut glass manufacturers, each adding their own little flourish to the pattern, here a three-cut fan in each top valley.   For example Walsh added a single vertical cut upwards from each peak (reversed for some shapes).

Measurements:

Decanter: h to rim 9", h to top of stopper 12Β½", max d 5", foot d 3 5/8", w 3lb 1Β½oz 1409g.

Glasses: h 3 7/8", max d 2", av w 3oz 90g.

Notable features:

Large central feature ground out and polished pontil mark on the decanter, like a S&W deluxe finish.

Fluted foot, particularly to the glasses, like a short epergne flute.   I can't work out how it was made.

Slightly squashed spherical knop stem on the glasses.

Stopper No. "6" neatly engraved on the side of the stopper insert, and on the inner slope of the rim.

Fat hollow spire-shaped stopper.

The lovely cut striations, typical of hand cutting, and adding extra sparkle, are clearly visible, so this set was either hand polished or quite lightly acid polished.

No maker's mark, so probably either from a maker like S&W who rarely marked their glass, or an order from a trade buyer who didn't want their glass marked.

... and finally ...

Looks to me mid C20, from about 1930 at the earliest.

Any ideas or thoughts?

TIA β€” Bernard C.  

[Frank]

Edinburgh Crystal... Oban perhaps? Some shown on SG site.

[jonchellycain]

Cant tell you anything about the set, but just had to say your pics are fab,, and how the heck did you get them on here like that 
michelle

[Bernard C]

Edinburgh Crystal... Oban perhaps? Some shown on SG site.

Frank β€” I'm ashamed to say that I still can't access SG.   The old boiler is being serviced later today, so, unless someone ids the set, it will probably be Saturday before I can get to a system that will allow me access.

Michelle β€” If you hit the quote button, top right of my post, you will see that I used a bbcode table.   Also, it's just about the simplest table possible with just one row containing two cells.   The first cell, on the left, contains image1, three line breaks to give you the horizontal gap, and image3 centred.   The second cell contains image2 centred, three line breaks to give you the horizontal gap, and image4.   This is a special case of the more usual situation where you will need a third cell/column in between containing spaces to give you a vertical gap, not necessary here as I was working with two landscape and two portrait images which interlock nicely.   The whole table was also centred.

Notes:

You can put spaces and line breaks between the table and tr tags, and between the tr and td tags, for making the code rather more clear.   bbcode ignores these.   Don't try any other characters.

The center tag works fine on images and tables, but the right align tag doesn't, it's only for text.

I made one error.   My total table width was 800 pixels, and the maximum should be not much more than 700 pixels.   Apologies to those with a smaller display.

There is another example here, with a spacer column in between.   Note how the column with text in it expands to fill the space available.

Michelle, why not try it?

Bernard C. 

[johnphilip]

The small trumpet bell foot looks very Whitefriars , is the knopf round like a marble or more disc shape? the cut is also like W/Fs but i am not sure about the decanter because the W/Fs one i have all have cut stoppers, also i assume its not marked and most W/Fs isnt . :sleep: on a second look the whole shape of the glasses looks W/Fs .

[Frank]

Only have a very few EC and no exact matches Oban was introduced in the 50s and is not quite right
But stopper shape and type is not untypical of EC. They have a huge range and I probably show less than !% of that so far.

[Paul S.]

sorry, can't help with attribution  -  but just out of curiosity do the stopper and body have a matching No., which is usually the case on quality
items like this.   Won't give you a maker of course, but might possibly indicate one period more than others.      C19 Nos.tend to be rather larger and
perhaps more flowery  -  whereas later Nos. become more discreet and smaller     Just a thought  -  and it's always something worth checking anyway when looking at decanters as it tells you instantly it the bits are a real pair (assuming there was a No. in the first place!)   Paul S.

[Bernard C]

Frank β€” That's most useful.   I am coming to the conclusion that the three row interlocking diamond pattern by the larger British cut glass manufacturers was quite deliberately made with these individual variations.   I've found two more variants on this theme, one by Stuart with a delightful Knyesque touch.

Paul β€” See my original post:

...

Stopper No. "6" neatly engraved on the side of the stopper insert, and on the inner slope of the rim.

...

The "6" was engraved in the small, mid C20 style as a single curved stroke, unlike earlier stopper numbers which, as you say, were larger, and were often engraved as a series of straight lines, forming numerals like those on a pocket calculator display.   There is an earlier example here, where you can see that the stopper number 2 has been engraved as a "z".

Bernard C. 

[Paul S.]

sorry  -  shud go a bit slower and read things properly.     and I'm always complaining about other people who do the same     Paul S.

[Bernard C]

Paul β€” No need for apologies β€” I found your point valuable as it hadn't occurred to me before that inscribed numbers could be very roughly dated by their size and style.

Frank β€” The Walsh version is illustrated in the Glass Museum, the article John Walsh Walsh Glass by Eric Reynolds.   Scroll down to the harlequin fruit set.   Note that for this particular shape, the three rows have been reduced to two.

Below, on the left, is a Stuart version as a liqueur with nice star cut foot, ball knop, merese, and the classic Kny double intaglio line delimiting the top of the pattern.   Marked Stuart ENGLAND, the version with the strange "t" but without the curly tail.   Measures 3 1/8" in height, av. weight 2oz 58g, quite heavy for such a small glass.

On the right is a fine quality unmarked wine? with the bottom row of diamonds extended downwards and notched to match the notched hexagonal flake cut stem.   Measures 5ΒΌ", weighs 4Β½oz 134g.

Michelle (and anyone else interested) β€” I've taken this opportunity to use a simple example of a more usual three column table, the central column just being a spacer column.

Bernard C.