Topic: Thomas Webb — heat sensitive? — akin to Alexandrite?

[flying free]

whoa, that's a lot of glass - especially for thin fine and small pieces.
m

[flying free]

So, is it possible they did not use a whole pot for Alexandrite, given the expense of the special ingredients, and the quality control issues etc?

[chopin-liszt]

I was only ever interested in volume - because that's something I can get hold of in my head, and make comparisons. I can get hold of the difference in "mass". 

I know 4 places is too much, I just tend to include them in calculations that get multiplied by figures such as 800, because then they can make a difference.
I normally drop a few when I get to the end, but that was copied and pasted, so I didn't.

How much wastage would there have been for the Alexandrite pieces?
How many failures for each perfect piece produced?

[flying free]

I was about to ask also, would the whole pot have been used to create Alexandrite i.e. given that it had to be reheated to create the colours, presumably not reheating it would have just left it as amber uranium glass.
However, thinking about it, given the expense of the added ingredients, I presume they wouldn't have 'wasted' them on just creating amber uranium glass pieces.
m

[flying free]

Paul, if you were worried about the punch cup, take a look at this
http://gorgeousglass.org.uk/collections/getrecord/DMUSE_BH1996/

I'm more worried about this.   
m

[Lustrousstone]

Who knows really. It's possible they had smaller pots for "specials".

I think the posy is Ok in that's it's Alexandrite. It's certainly Webb with that honeycomb mould. I think it's an example of reheating issues. Burmese didn't always come out as it should yet it was still sold. This one is overcooked; the top is quite dark
http://lustrousstone.co.uk/cpg/displayimage.php?pid=991

[flying free]

how do we know it's Alexandrite though 
It might be a Webb shape and mold (did Mount Washington do this shape as well for their Burmese?) , but the colours shade from red to amber - no three colour shading and no chocolate rim   
Possibly it's uranium glass and that's how they know.  Otherwise I'd have said not Alexandrite given the photograph and their description
Edited - oops sorry, I see you said Webb because of the  mould not the shape.

Edited again - when the pics enlarged it does look as though it's possible the colour might change near the rim.  In which case, that is not a good description given on the site as it just says:
 'Posy bowl, heat sensitive "Alexandrite" glass shading from red at rim to yellow at base, bulbous shape, honeycomb moulded with hexagonal red rim'

Perhaps that explains why no other books mention the blue and the chocolate - they just mention the tri-colour and hadn't observed the finer details of these pieces?

[Paul S.]

as we've discussed, the most desirable Alexandrite seems to have been those pieces showing the violet/blue shading at the rim, such as the Parkington/CH pieces  -  probably because they give the most dramatic visual effect, and that brings us back to aesthetics again.
There could also be a case to argue that sellers are describing their pieces as Alexandrite simply because it has the Amberina look but that the pattern/design is known to be from T/Webb, although I would have thought the museum had done their homework.     Pity though that the T/Webb attribution isn't supported with a little more detail - perhaps you should ask them for details.
Some sellers might go for a British provenance rather than the States - irrespective of colour - simply because they know Webb made a particular pattern.

Christine may well be correct again with your link - I don't know - but can say that colour wise your linked posy looks very much like some of the Rose Amber from the States.       I wish you could see the pix in my 'Mt. Washington Glass' book - the variation within the two States types of this heat reactive glass is greater than you'd imagine - some rim colours border on a deep ox blood.
This factory did a lot of ball-optic moulding, and possibly other optic variations, but off-hand I can't see honeycomb.
The workers did have their share of problems achieving satisfactory colours, apparently  -  too much lead sometimes might ruin the batch and they then had to stop work.

Burmese from the States does vary enormously.

[flying free]

Hi Paul
Yes, I've looked at many pieces of rose amberina, fuschia amberina, bluerina,and just plain old amberina and they do vary enormously.  I'm not at all keen on the pieces that are very dark at the rim and to be honest, I don't like the darkness of the amber either    They don't appear to be very 'delicate' compared to the Webb's Alexandrite pieces which appear 'finer' in all ways, colour, shape, mold patterns and design (well, that's going on photographs of course since I don't own a piece...). 

I'm half  tempted to try and find a piece I like now just so as I have a comparison but then I read that there was 'amberina' being produced from Italy and suddenly it all became too complicated.  I'd hate to end up with the wrong thing and trying to work out who produced what and which bits are really old seems like a minefield from my cursory reading in the last couple of days.

m

[Paul S.]

Seems this stuff was making big money back then, and it would be difficult to over-estimate the success of this art-glass, financially, in the States during the early 1880's - although this was all rather over-shadowed at the time by what must have been very expensive litigation for the two companies...........   but that's what seems to happen when there's money to be made.
Copying must be the second oldest profession, and the genuine article was plagued by European imports (into the States), much from Germany, and seems it did end up with the name of German Amberina.   
The Truitt's book includes examples of Bohemian Amberina, which they attribute to the Harrach glassworks, although they don't discuss this product in the text - which included not only the typical amber to red, but what looks like some entirely red pieces -  they also include shell-ribbing on a handle. 

According to Kenneth M. Wilson, these 'foreign imports' caused serious economic problems for sales of home grown Amberina, and into the bargain it seems that these imports were made by 'shell casing/plating' the colours  -   i.e. not 'homogenous in structure' like the real thing  -  so made to be sold cheaply and to undercut the genuine article.
Some imports were found to be simply stained red over amber  -  which is perhaps easier to detect from the plated examples, about which Wilson comments...."the two types of glass could not be distinguished (the States originals and the plated imports) except by experts".
One of the differences, apparently, is that the original Amberina and Rose Amber were lead containing metals, whereas those from Continental Europe were not. ...........  so flicking essential
There are other factors that apparently help to suggest the origin, but won't go into those here. 

Some examples of the original States products are known to have been engraved  -  very beautiful too.

Believe that determining the differences between the various products has given the States people real headaches, but it is very attractive, and one of those types of glass that brings out the lust in us collectors, so can see the appeal.

Of course credit for almost all of this information goes to Wilson, and if you've the slightest interest in art glass from the last quarter of the C19, then his volumes are a must - they're sold under the 'Antique Collectors' Club' banner..........  so does that mean I'm an antique ??