Topic: scottish door knobs handles

[bOBA]

Thanks both. I appreciate the insight. I am trying to look into which book best explains the Vasart years generally pre the emergence of Perthshire. Any ideas are welcome. The Perthshire weights are beautifully made but the charm of Vasart, based partly on these primitive techniques is tangible, even with odd mistakes thrown in. Personally I liked the raised canes and still do after knowing they are partly like that due to necessity. I have studied and written about early Beranek so I have seen a little of glass made under less than ideal circumstances... Thank you for mentioning the orange, I am amused to hear about the warm orange colour that is in Vasart weights, it is in the first Vasart type weight I bought, that must have been a very noisy machine indeed!

thanks again,

Robert (bOBA)

[Derek]

Hi Robert

There are two main books dealing with Vasart - John Simmonds - "Paperweights from Great Britain" and Bob Hall - "Scottish paperweights"
unfortunately both the books were based on 1980's research and contain some important inaccuracies.

A better bet would be to secure copies of the 2011 and 2012 PCA Bulletin where I traced the history of Scottish paperweights from the
1920's when theYsart family arrived at Moncrieff' through to the current day and corrects the inaccuracies in the books previously mentioned.

Then in the 2014 PCA bulletin I contributed a related article laying out the latest research about the Ysart family.

More recently there is also Angela Bowey's book "Pirelli Glass" published in 2016 which contains some useful info about Vasart and their
link with George Dunlop although the bulk of the book is about the Prielli Glass animals.

Hope this helps

Best regards

Derek

[bOBA]

Thank you Derek for those useful pointers, I will be looking into these areas,

Robert (bOBA)

[paperweights]

Great References - Thanks Derek.  The Vasart / Pirelli / Lassman connection is also explored in the 2015 PCA Bulletin article that Angela Bowey and I wrote "Pirelli, Vasart, and the Ysart Family".  In particular we add information on the Lassman / Vasart barware line and the effort that went into providing an anchor for the mechanical attachment of the hardware in corkscrews, bottle openers, etc. 

[KevinH]

In Reply #7, Robert said:

I have thrown a UV torch over this and my other possible Vasart/Perthshire paperweights and I am not really sure I can tell anything regarding blue colours, or steel, some are purple.....

Standard UV lights (strip, torch, lamp etc.) are in the longwave band. They will not show fluorescence differences between 1st period Vasart, 2nd period Vasart and Strathearn - all of which will show a shade of green, some a bit brighter than others and some more yellow than others, but all green.

A shortwave uv light will show blue flouresecnce for the lead-based glass used for the 2nd period Vasart (glass batch changed during 1956) and Strathearn items. The 1st period Vasart items will show as a shade of grey under the shortwave light.

The uv fluorescence thingy is perhaps a bit of a personal issue with me and is not so important for most folk. But I would dearly like to see, or just know of, a Vasart doorknob, bar-set item etc, that fluoresces as grey rather than blue under shortwave uv. I believe they exist, but so far I have not seen or heard of one.

It's getting to be like missing out on a "simple tick" for my bird watching lists!

[paperweights]

Kevin, what wave length are you recommending for short UV?  265 nm or something different?  I've always put off getting the short UV due to the danger to the eyes and the cost.  Any recommendations?

[KevinH]

My uv lamp is a mains powered handheld unit with 8w lights ... longwave (365 nm) and shortwave (254 nm). I bought it many years ago from the "UVP California" company (they now have agents in many parts of the world including the UK). The main advantage of this type of lamp is that the uv reaction can be seen very well without having to hold the lamp 2 inches from the item being checked. But it wasn't cheap!

These days, there are several units for battery operated shortwave or longwave (or dual) lamps. They can be found on eBay ... but beware ... lamps through eBay (and other similar sources) will vary in quality of build and effectiveness of use. And they very likely will not come with any warnings about using protective goggles or facemasks etc.

To check out effectiveness etc., I bought a shortwave unit from Germany via eBay. It was stated as being for such as checking postage stamps - and had a product name of "Lighthouse". It was of basic plastic construction and needed four AA batteries. The small On/Off switch had no indication of "On" or "Off"! I inserted batteries and found that the light was in the "On" position. I switched it off but the lamp was still operative! I could find no way to check or tweak the inner workings of the On/Off control. I did not use it after that experience. And I have not tried any other "cheaper" battery powered units.

[paperweights]

Thanks ... very helpful.