Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. > British & Irish Glass

Bagley Elf

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Bernard C:
Anne,

Nice to know that someone appreciates my efforts, which take me ages as words do not come easily to me.   I am a mathematician or logician by background and training, not a wordsmith.   Also then I have to spell check, and then make sure it reads okay in the USA.   Punctuation is a problem, so I usually go for the Oxford or American comma before the final "and" in a list, as this is easier for the American reader, but this forces you to save the best till last, otherwise the emphasis of the comma in conventional British punctuation looks rather strange.   Other punctuation differences do not cause any problems with understanding.    I keep to my own native British spelling, the convention on the Internet.   Bill Bryson's Troublesome Words is always to hand and helps me avoid most of the pitfalls of communicating in two slightly different languages.   It also helps with almost all of the discreet / discrete problems, which I can never remember and always have to look up.

Regards, Bernard C.  8)

Cathy B:
Thank you Bernard, for your marvellous and articulate response!

I don't know think you need to be so modest about your language, when some of us have to scrabble around to build sentences with stick-like vocabularies and the quick-sand foundations provided by the "Whole Language" teaching experiment.

Back to the subject. If the Elf posy vase was the norm, and Peter's vase was unusual, then perhaps it could be argued that in order to create Peter's vase, the usual process had to be interrupted. Therefore the process of creating Peter's vase is a variation of the norm, which would make this vase a variant of the normal form  :wink:

One of the very first pieces of glass I bought on eBay was an Elf.  It had been advertised as having "just a small chip" to the rim (clearly I wasn't as fussy as I am now). When it finally arrived, the chip turned out to be a full 1 1/2 inches in diameter!

Cathy

Bernard C:
Thanks, Cathy.

Your logic on Peter's vase is, at first sight, fine.   However, it assumes perfect knowledge.   Unfortunately this is not the case, as only about four Bagley trade catalogues are known to have survived.   So we do not know whether Peter's vase was a standard item offered in one of the missing catalogues or not.   Nice try, but I am on home ground here.  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

I will ask my other half about "Whole Language".   Back in the '60s as a schoolboy I just did English Language, English Literature, French, and Latin.  The last is very useful for reading inscriptions on Roman and Venetian monuments, but not for much else!

Bernard C.  8)

paradisetrader:
Thanks Cathy & Bernard

--- Quote ---It is unusual to find examples of pressed glass in this unmodified form.
--- End quote ---

I think Cathy was trying to undertand, like me, your use of the term "unmodified form", Bernard and therefore to pinpint what, exactly it is that is "unusual".
Nothing wrong with your English Bernard - au contraire - just a little terminology / identification problem.
Am also still struggling to undertand how an understanding of this process would help in distinguishing this vase from one made by Northwood.
Did their technique different significantly ? Or were their moulds just sharper ? newer ? better quality ? which would have resulted in the "deeper, pointier ripple" which Cathy first mentioned to me.
 Peter

Bernard C:
Peter,

By "unmodified" I meant "as it came out of the mould".   For this class of pressed glass, this would be anything from a wide to a narrow tumbler shape with a vertical rim.   As I said it is unusual as I could think of only the one example.   Another is the Davidson pattern 50 or 51 Sundae Glass, mostly made for British Rail, and having none of the flaring associated with the 50 or 51 vase from the same moulds.

I cannot help with Northwood or other American lookalikes.   The only pattern of these lookalikes I have seen is the copy of the Davidson No. 20 floating bowl, the subject of a recent thread on this board.  In this case the lookalikes are fairly easy to recognise as the colours are wrong for Davidson, and the American versions do not have the milled pattern rim.

Please remember that I wrote all the above just from examining glass - I had not then had the benefit of Adam's revelations.   I got it wrong in two significant ways.   Firstly I had assumed that the object was dropped straight out of the mould onto a former, as I could not see any way of reheating it.  And secondly, I had not appreciated that some flaring or cupping was done by hand.   Possibly the flaring of the 50 and 51 vases was an example of handwork.   Or it may have been that early examples of any pattern were flared and cupped by hand until the demand was sufficiently established to justify the expense of a specially made former.   Adam doesn't make this clear.   Otherwise I don't appear to have been too far off.

Bernard C.  8)

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