thank Mike

yes the vine and the grapes don't look as though they are by the same hand as mine (the leaves don't have a curved outline, they are more pointy, and the grapes looks the same but they just aren't, can't explain why lol:) )- but the type of cameo is exactly the same.
And yes it could certainly have been made in one place and decorated in another. But those places and decorators will be quite limited IMHO as I said earlier in the thread.
It was difficult to successfully make three layer overlay glass - there are not that many pieces around made in that time period of mid 19th (and they would have been expensive at that time). In addition to which, making cameo such as this on three layer glass, I believe would also have been a fairly difficult task as I've illustrated by previous comments and sources in this thread (see my quote below which includes a comment at the beginning from the V&A).
Even without the cameo design in the middle of the body of the vase, I can’t think there were that many of the three (i.e. transparent or opaline base with two more coloured overlays on) layer pieces produced at this time, given the difficulty of producing overlay glass and certainly David Whitehouse's book makes no mention of Bohemian cameo glass of mid 19th century at all despite mentioning cameo from various places in earlier eras and English cameo of later in the 19th
I have a few books on this time period and more on glass of the time periods of either side and there are very few pieces of three layer overlay glass, never mind those that also have cameo decoration as well.
'An additional comment they made was :
‘The techniques used are not that of Franz Paul Zach, indeed this blue cut casing combined with different designs of engraved and etched scenes was popular in Bohemia at that time with a number of factories producing examples’.
Firstly regarding the ‘popularity’:
I have searched extensively, but although I can find a number of pieces in a similar ‘ ish’ vein, I can only find two (possibly three) the same and one that is very similar (in the Corning) to mine.
I just don’t think they were that prolific and I think that the pieces the V&A refer to are mostly two layer and cameo engraved pieces i.e one colour over clear (see links I’ve given below to pieces similar to mine but only two layers).
-'
see also my previous comment here:
'
c) There is a book online written by David Whitehouse called English Cameo Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass and in it on page 7 under Preface he writes:
‘The first cameo glass vessels were made by the Romans between about 25 B.C. and A.D. 50. A handful of vessels were produced by Roman glassworkers in the fourth century A.D., rather
more were made by Islamic craftsmen between the ninth and 11th centuries, and Chinese glass cutters in and after the 18th century made more cameo glasses than all their predecessors combined. Nevertheless, cameo glass was comparatively rare until the late 19th century, when glassmakers in the Stourbridge area of central England produced tens of thousands of objects for consumption at home and abroad.’
'
So, I still think it would be possible to find the house that made the blank and also the decorator. But it will require me to match up all the evidence in my Walter Spiegl book (black and white pics and German descriptions which is quite time consuming for me to translate), with the incorrectly attributed colour pieces available online and then check the way they have been cut for evidence against those that are marked or are identified firmly as, for example, Karl Pfohl/Franz Zach and the other decorators mentioned in the Harrach book.
phew.... at some point I'll get round to it lol

Uni...easy? lol, I would say not, but I suppose it does depend on what you want to do and where you want to go. For the selective 2% of academic bright sparks it may be eas
ier, for the other 98%, definitely not so in my opinion.
My son will end up owing on a loan of £56,000 as he needs to do a 4yr Masters (plus a 5th year in industry) for what he wants to do - for taking on that kind of debt, as well as our money to top it up, you want a good uni/course/degree! (and you need the grades to match (he needs A*AA) - he's at a non-selective state school) I definitely would not rather be in his shoes

I wasn't aware Uni limits had been 'axed'? this year they were reduced to ABB. Has that been reduced further for next year? I suspect some Uni's will be struggling very much next year - the government has increased loans to £9K/yr from £3K, as well as tampering with the AS and A level grade boundary requirements, as well as some Uni's increasing their grade requirements, all in one fell swoop. That is going to have consequences, for example there was a report at the weekend that 40% of Language departments at Unis were going to be cut! Last year I read that even some Russell Group unis struggled to fill their places leaving them hundreds of thousands of pounds down for the next three years. It's going to get stinky.
m