Hi folks,
Showing two Molineaux Webb jugs picked up on eBay recently. I dare say someone here was bidding on the uranium piece as it cost nearly 20 times more than the plain one :-(
The larger item matches number 422 in the Molineaux Webb pressed glass catalogue which would date it, best guess, between 1858 to 1860.
It shows three signs of being an early piece
1 - The S shape handle, which I learned recently from another thread is a style which died out circa 1860
2 - The raised square or rectangle shape is common in early pressed glass pieces and also fades out circa 1860
3 - The foot, which you can see is similar to the Robinson & Bolton 1856 piece in an earlier post by Roy. Also seen this style on a number of pre 1860 pieces
The tiny uranium piece is even earlier, possibly late 1840s. This may seem surprising, but after seeing some early uranium Molineaux Webb butters in the latest issue of Pressed Glass Correspondence, courtesy of Dave Peterson, there was clearly a phase from circa the late 1840s to 1870, where the Manchester glass houses were using uranium in domestic table pieces, as well as in the candlesticks you can see in a previous MolWebb thread.