Topic: oriental sailing boat engraving

[Paul S.]

thanks Penny  -  for the time being then we shall defer to your evidence and knowledge   -  though I had the impression that sulphides required a more skilled approach - those I see in books appear to be far removed from basic doorstop material, and look to need some artistic skill to provide the modelling work for the cameo aspect.              So unsure as to whether such pieces should be included with the other friggers you mention.

I'm on the train to Yorkshire already - to find these gardens adorned with 'numerous' bottle-green dumps along the pathways.          I can remember visiting my paternal grandparents in the mid 1950s and seeing that my grandfather had done something similar by upturning dark green wine bottles - those with kicks in the bottoms - to create borders along his garden paths  -  there must have been scores of them.

Coming back to your thoughts as to the bottle factory workers having the potential to make pieces such as your two examples  ………   can only repeat my thoughts that since bottle factories only had the ability to make glass in moulds, then free blown items as your vase and tumbler would have been impossible, since such pieces required blowing irons and pontil rods, plus the skill to use such items.     But of course I'm giving an opinion only and who knows what might have happened in the depths of the C19, though I'm struggling to see 'chairs' and the skills for free blown glass in a Kilner jar factory.

Am going to disagree with you Penny regarding the description of 'malachite' to describe the multi-coloured glass which is now often termed slag glass.          This is a perennial gripe of mine though I doubt the world will listen to my reasoning, which is  …………    you're correct that since malachite is green, then the term should be used to described green marbled glass only, and not the other multitude of mixed colours.
I would like to see a universal agreement to call all of these colours 'marbled', since that is the appearance they give  -  not blackberries and cream for example.
The problem with descriptions is one of repetition  …………   someone somewhere picks up on a neat sounding piece of terminology, bandies it around and before you can say malachite, it sticks, and everyone is using the word and so it travels on unhindered  -  whether it's correct or not.

Certainly wouldn't describe you as a relative newcomer - ten years is a goodly length of time and the volume of glass you've seen must have given a wealth of knowledge  -  must remember to ask you opinion on my odd W/Fs finds.

As for straw marks, I can only imagine that glass items (possibly bottle related pieces) from poor quality moulds, would show surface lines and  striations etc. that someone has interpreted as looking like an indentation from a length of straw  -  again, it's a fanciful expression  -  you can imagine bedraggled souls working 12 hour shifts in smoky, poorly lit cones - most of then suffering from pulmonary diseases from the open furnaces.    In the half light they spend their days bent double packing glass into wooden crates and stuffing straw around the glass to help avoid breakages.