just a little more circumstantial evidence for 1950s - in the same auction were two whitefriar weights, one a Triplex and one with initials in the centre. Both of these date from early 50s - 1951 Festival of Britain is ofter quoted. These were within 4 lots of the two bottles and I think there were a couple of other whitefriar glass lots, so there is a chance that all these came from the same seller
That figures mjr. I did notice the other lots but only on the morning of the sale so didn't have time go through them all properly. The inkwells were within two lots of each other. I put in a hopeful bid of 220 for each, after hurriedly finding some similar (but inferior looking) examples of inkwells going for considerably higher. Will probably keep these a good while yet anyway - they're great to hold and look at! I didn't realise they'd turn out to be so hard to fully identify though. But then I do love a good riddle!

I've emailed Patrick and he's replied he's not entirely sure about them so far, and has kindly offered to show them to Ray Annenberg in a couple of weeks time. Will post back here any further news of course.
Paul.