Topic: Canary yellow individual open salt - Joseph Webb or American?

[Anne E.B.]

The more I try to find out about this little 8 sided salt, the more confused I get   It's a fab colour and doesn't need a U.V. light to glow as shown.  I would imagine its an individual salt as its only 2¼ x 1¾ x ¾ inches, has what I'd desribe as a square pyramid with a flat square hobnail pattern.

I think it could possibly be one made by Joseph Webb, no. 4775 seen here in their 1870 catalogue http://opensalts.us/References/Catalogs/England/ENG-Webb1870-aW.jpg (taken from here http://opensalts.us/opensaltsus.html ) although the image is not very clear.

I then discovered that Webb Jr. went to work at Phoenix Glass Works Ohio c.1883, and that they produced Canary Flint or Canary Yellow pieces, so it could have been made there, although I'm inclined to think more near to home, being in the U.K.

Just to confuse things even more, for me at least, other glassworks made similar ones including George Duncan & Sons, which can be seen on the opensalts website in the U.S. section no.308, and also here page 5 no.7. http://opensalts.us/References/SaltyComments/SC20.pdf and  last but not least U.S. Glass Company's catalogue, which George Duncan became part of.

At this point, I'm getting exhausted

The two identical pattern flint ones were just acquired very recently, as I thought they might help in the search. 

[Anne E.B.]

I omitted to also say that Edward Moore & Co. bought all the moulds belonging to Joseph Webb in 1888, including salts, according to my copy of "English 19th-Century Press-Moulded Glass" by Lattimore, p.111.  Another possibility? 

[Lustrousstone]

I tentatively concluded Sowerby about mine on some basis or other! I think we can rule out the US, as it's a pretty common salt here. I think you're right about Joseph Webb

[Ohio]

You can rule out Phoenix. Their utilitarian line was limited to shakers, match & toothpick holders, cruets, covered butters & humidores. I have the Phoenix book & there is no mention of open salts. Have to say though that if you found Phoenix was in Ohio...that is incorrect. Phoenix was always in Phillipsburg (now Monaca) PA, but I think I know where the comfusion comes from. Webb Jr. was with Phoexix in 1883 then at some point in time he left & joined Libbey in Toledo, Ohio to assist them in the 1893 Worlds Exposition in Chicago. The way its written leads you think he left after 1888 when Phoenix was changing from art glass  to cut glass & electrical lighting, but give no definitive dates. in 1894 Webb joined Dithridge Fort Pitt Glass then Tarentum Glass both in PA. He also was with New Martinsville Glass in WV from 1901-1904, 1904 to Haskins Glass Co. in Martins Ferry, OH for a very brief stint then moved to Byesville, Oh & worked for Byesville Glass less than a year before his passing. He was pretty much all over the place from PA, OH & WV.

[agincourt17]

You will see from
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,54643.0.html
that

Joseph Webb purchased the Coalbourn Hill Glass Works, Wordsley in 1850 (having previously been in business with his cousin Edward). He died on 1 May 1869, aged 56. Initially, Jane Webb, Joseph's wife, and Joseph Hammond, Jane's brother, took over as executors (because his 2 sons, Henry Fitzroy and Joseph Junior were still minors). Jane, along with various others, continued trading in the business from the Coalbourn Hill Glass works (acting as Joseph Webb’s executors) until 13 September 1887. The site of the Coalbourn Hill Glass Works now lies beneath Stourbridge’s Ruskin Centre.

So that by 1870, the date of the salts catalogue, the glass works was under the control of Joseph Webb’s executors.

Prior to his death, Joseph Webb only registered 10 designs (all between 1851 and 1858) - see Jenny Thompson: ‘A Supplement to The Identification of English Pressed Glass 1842-1908’ – but unfortunately none of the design registrations were for salts.

I think that Anne E.B’s salt is of a type that could have been produced by any one of a number of British glass houses up to 1870 (and certainly the canary yellow uranium glass body could well be from that period), but without any specific identifying marks it would be virtually impossible to attribute the salt specifically to Joseph Webb. Moreover, I know of no attributed Joseph Webb pieces in that canary yellow uranium glass, and indeed the only uranium glass piece that I have ever seen that can be firmly attributed to Webb’s Coalbourn Hill Glass works is a pressed glass swan from Jane Webb & Joseph Hammond’s registered design number 288015 of  21 Dec 1874 – Parcel 4, but the glass body is quite a pale yellow-green (though still very UV reactive).

(Permission for the re-use of this image on the GMB granted by Kevin Collins).

Fred.

[Paul S.]

one of those pieces (the uranium example) that you half expect to see in Barry Skelcher's books  -  but it's not in either book that I can see.
I've looked through TNA images, and again no joy  -  always possible it's one that I don't have though.

[thewingedsphinx]

I come across some of these little hobnail salts in pink I think it maybe Davidson’s “patent Rose” colour. I just received one of these swans also in this thread in the same colour but it has a thin blob of glass where the lozenge  should be, so I wonder if that was also made by Davidson, we have a clear swan also with a lozenge by Webb.
I recall Raymond slack saying Davidson bought moulds from Edward Moore.