Topic: Couple of Chance pin trays for show....

[keith]

First is a 'Greco' with an advert for ICI the other might not be Chance but as it's subject was local I thought I'd go for it,

[David E]

Nice finds. 'Lucas' appears to be the most common of the trademarks found on Ruby Greco - I once saw a huge 40-piece set at a fair, but felt it was just too much to take home... The ICI one is far less common.

I have seen the 'Round Oak' tray before on eBay and I thought Stuart bought that - did you get this at Malvern on Sunday? We were all there.

[keith]

We were there, I saw you across one of the large halls but when I got past the crowd you'd gone, did you find much ? I didn't 

[agincourt17]

I was interested to see the aerial photo of the Round Oak Steel Works on a piece of glass. I hail originally from that neck of the woods – part of the industrial heartland of the West Midlands Black Country, and only a few miles from the Stourbridge glass working areas.

When I was growing up, the blast furnaces were vented each evening, lighting up the sky red for miles around (and, incidentally, coating everything for miles around with fine red ash dust).

All gone now, redeveloped in the 1980s and 1990s into the huge retail complex of the Merry Hill Shopping Centre and the adjacent Waterfront complex at Brierley Hill.

Here are a couple of aerial photos of the site now:
https://www.intugroup.co.uk/media/262073/merry-hill-aerial.png
and
http://www.webbaviation.co.uk/gallery/d/28259-1/MerryHillShoppingCentre-ba29553.jpg

Fred.

[keith]

I know blast furnaces are pretty nasty things, eco wise etc... but I hate Merry Hill, merry hell we call it, what town were you from Fred ?

[agincourt17]

I hate Merry Hill too, Keith. No wonder the plastic-tat, tiger economies of the World prosper while our economy languishes in the doldrums – but come the Revolution… ! (I would probably be among the first to be ‘disappeared’).

I was basically a Dudley boy – lived in Netherton and Dudley Wood. I have lived in Wales for many years now, but my mother still lives in Netherton, and I visit regularly, though the area has changed enormously since my childhood - a mere shadow now of its former heavily-industrial heyday.

Fred.

[keith]

Wales is quite a bit prettier than here  I'm 'Brummie' born, Oldbury raised and live now in Rowley Regis 

[agincourt17]

At least you are close enough to Stourbridge to stand a reasonable chance of finding some interesting pieces of glass in the local charity shops - pretty poor pickings in Wales.

Fred

[keith]

You'd think so, there's very little local glass to be found recently, the odd Chance plate is about it, the last decent piece I found was a Strathearn vase, not what you'd call local ! 

[Stuart71]

Great finds Keith, both with industrial heritage interest, I'd never seen an ICI one.

I think David might be thinking of a very similar tray I picked up with an aerial view of Midland Tar Distillers in Oldbury