Topic: Carnival Vase - ID = Lily of the Valley for Rosso Wholesale Glass Dealers

[Ohio]

This is Summit. While the mold is Westmoreland & while Lily of the Valley was produced in colors they never made Lily of the Valley in Carnival. Its a reproduction.

[vintagerose]

Great to know Ohio. Why is it that when molds are sold and re-used they are not required to remove the original mold manufacturer mark? This would help my confusion on identifying.

[Ohio]

Actually the answer is fairly simple in the U.S. Unlike copyrights or patents, trademark registration rights can last indefinitely if the owner continues to use the mark to identify goods or services & thats the key since if the owner has been out of business for 10 years the Federal Trademark registration expires & even then if its less than 10 years between the fifth and sixth year after the date of initial trademark registration, the owner must file an "affidavit of use" and pay an additional fee to keep the registration alive plus also file an affidavit and pay a fee within a year before the end of every ten-year period.

So what does that mean? Most of these molds have been sitting around for alot longer than the 5th & 6th year pertaining to the "affidavit of use" because the "owner" has been out of business longer than that (many times its decades)so its fair game with little rules.

Thats the legal answer, the practical answer is if the owner has been gone for years its usually a case of who cares & who has a legal right to do anything about it? So the rule of thumb is know what you are buying before you buy especially if the original company has been out of business for years & know who has the molds & who is reproducing what by whom. Its part of the tuition process.

[vintagerose]

Excellent I had no idea. Where does one find out if molds have been sold, which molds where sold, and who bought them? Also, where may there be molds just waiting to be bought, or collecting dust?

[Ohio]

You can keep an eye on this group. There is a list that is page after page detailing what company & what mold. I know there will be multiple people tracking who bought what & it in all probability be available on line after the auction, but with 10K molds it will take awhile. Just google the auction results a couple of weeks after it ends to see if anything appears, but again it will probably take awhile. This isn't easy. http://www.ndga.net/articles/fentonauction.php

[vintagerose]

I had heard Fenton was going out of buisness back in 2009. Now that I went to the link and read the article I feel my heart breaking. It did not say where the auction is. I suppose this means over 10,000 molds change hands. I have been to auctions, but no one like this. We are really losing an art form in the US.