Topic: ID help needed on vaseline/uranium card receiver

[mrvaselineglass]

Any help or direction to look would be greatly appreciated!  The card receiver is 7 1/4 inches in diameter.  there is an 8-lobe petal-style base.  There is a rough pontil on the bottom (most likely so they could flare out the top).  The height is 2 1/4 inches.  I don't detect much of a bell tone, so I don't think it is old enough to be flint uranium glass.  There is good wear on the bottom, though.  The mold was a 3-part mold, and no wafer connects the bottom to the top.  The mold may have been a sugar bowl that was flattened out.  The piece lists a little to one side (1/4" drop from one side to the other), so that is why I think it might have started as a different shape when it first came out of the mold.  The majority of the pattern is cross-lattice, with repeating oval lobes around the top rim. 

Dave Peterson
(Mr. Vaseline Glass)

[Paul S.]

hello Dave  -  have looked thru both volumes of Barry Skelcher, but regret no joy - and have searched the webb under both card receivers and visiting card trays (which I think is the name more appropriate for the UK) - again no success.     Amazing what you learn when faced with something new  -  seems (almost without exception) that 'card receivers' were designed with some form of shaped decoration - i.e. the sides were curved up - or in some way they were not round and symmetrical like yours.   In the silver/plate/pewter examples there was often an added decoration of floral/animal/female, and no doubt you've seen some of the colourful examples on ebay etc.     Noticeably, glass ones seemed almost never to have a 'foot' like yours, although some metal examples did.      Unless you have some reason for knowing this to have been used specifically as a 'card receiver', then I would seriously consider your piece to be some form of small comport/tazza/cake stand/seetmeat plate etc.     Of course, some of these words are used very inappropriately  -  it's just that modern usage has mis-appropriated these names and we seem stuck with them, so I use them here.    Sorry this is not much help. 

[Ohio]

I agree. When I looked at it I wondered what design element designated this a card receiver other than a low footed compote/comport/bowl.

[mrvaselineglass]

I agree with the possible attribution to be a tazza or something else.  However, I am not so concerned about the name of the shape as I am about the name of the pattern (or barring none exists), possibly the name of the maker.  A mold can be used for a variety of shapes (i.e. a piece is pressed in a bowl mold and while the glass is still soft, it is flattened into a plate shape).  This might have started out as a footed sugar.  The pattern may have also been made in other shapes, such as a creamer.  I was hoping someone had seen a lattice piece that had little ovals around the top border (in any shape). 

Dave