Topic: Monart SA with silver & gold mica

[orangeglass]

Okay, we stand corrected   
Why couldn't they get it from other  sources then - only Woolies at Christmas!
If it is a naturally occurring mineral there will be variances - I believe it looks more translucent glittery until it is put into the glass when it appears more silver (or gold!) 

[chopin-liszt]

The world was a much "smaller place" then.
Fancy goods were not readily available.

For heavens sake, even I can remember when we made our clothes, buying material and patterns from Simplicity and Vogue - because we couldn't buy clothes in the shops.

Mica glitter from woolies was a luxury!

[orangeglass]

I just meant that as "industrial' as well as 'art glass' manufacturers they had suppliers for the coloured enamels, and the gold (and possibly other colours) aventurine (expensive), you would have thought they could have got hold of Mica flakes from another source!

Roberta

[chopin-liszt]

Speculating here, but perhaps is simply wasn't common to be using mica chips in glass?
Monart used it and so did the unknown Romanian maker of the "Monart-a-likes" during the same period - but I don't know of anybody else who did.

The Ysarts were innovators, inventors, researchers in what they could do with glass - pioneers of hand-made individual works of art!

And they only used the mica during the winter - they didn't buy up loads to use during the spring, summer or autumn.

[Gary]

I have 3 pieces of Monart with silver inclusion ( 1 boxed so can't compare), the images below are taken with a macro lens. The first two are from a vase with a fair bit of discolouration in the silver inclusion. When viewed from different angles it is not so pronounced. The third image is of a vase with very little discolouration no matter what angled it is viewed at (hope that makes sense).

What information have you got Sue that the Christmas glitter is real mica,  I have no idea what the Christmas glitter is made of.
Gary

[orangeglass]

The first two pictures are exactly what mine look like, but I couldn't manage to take a picture of mine and get it it look like reality!
I have seen a piece where it looks like your last picture - definitely silver!
Roberta

[chopin-liszt]

To be honest, I have no evidence that woolies mica was actually mica - but what else could it be? It's always been referred to as the mica flakes used by Woolies for christmas glitter.
Does it say anything in the book about it?

The pack does insist it's heat resistant. 
Silver is a very difficult metal to incorporate with glass. Tiny bits like that would melt and react with the glass to produce ochrey yellow colours.
If silver was in it, I cannot imagine that none of the silver would have reacted in any piece, so silver metal is completely ruled out.

Woolies wouldn't have been selling real silver flakes for glitter either - they'd tarnish so quickly they'd be useless, and real gold ould have been a tad expensive.

I can remember an oven door having a window made of mica in a lab.

[Gary]

I bow to your superior knowledge of chemistry Sue, that it is not silver.
 I agree it always been referred to as silver mica myself included, though this is based on hearsay only.
What got me thinking about the subject of Christmas glitter, was when Lustrousstone mentioned that mica does not tarnish, where it does look tarnished in Roberta's vase and the first two images in my last post. Hence the possibility of it not being real silver mica.
Gary

[chopin-liszt]

If you look at the images of mica mineral in the links I posted, you'll see how is can be both yellowy (gold) and silvery (clear). It's naturally flaky and in "sheets".

But it's decidedly not doing all the silver/glass reactions in Monart that the silver chloride crystals used in Mdina glass do.  (It converts to being silver metal ions and chloride ions in the heat).

I suspect that when the term silver mica is used, it really should be silver-coloured mica - but that the word coloured got dropped. It is merely referring to the colour achieved, not the actual metal being used.

[orangeglass]

I think it is a bit like the variances in aventurine (even though that is not a naturally occurring thing - the ones used for glass) in that you get slightly different colours, shades in it - that is why I was initially questioning the colour number refs. on ysartglass in that one states silver mica and the other just mica.
I do think it is real mica used because of its heat resistant properties, as has been already said - other metals etc. would react to change colour.
Roberta