Topic: Slice cut hollow baluster stem glasses

[Jeffingtons]

Hi. Picked these up a couple of weeks ago. They don't ring when pinged. 120-130 grams in weight (they vary a fair bit as you can see from the gaps between the feet in the last picture - the bowls are touching). All slightly different height too, around 4.5 inches, bowls approx 2.5 inches across. All three have inclusions here and there. Polished pontils for all of them. Any thoughts about age, and whether they might be tavern ware or for the home, or do they fall into the morass of undocumented designs from the 19th century?

On a related note, out of interest, does anyone know when this style of stem first came in to use? These are a bit different to the other slice cut hollow stems I've seen, in that the knop is particularly bulbous. I know the stem style has been used for a long time (I have a couple of c20 copies) but how far back?

[Paul S.]

you don't mention wear  -  just possible this might help to assess whether made mid C20 or something nearer to one hundred years or more in age.        The fact that these aren't lead glass suggests a lower quality, but I'd still have thought for domestic use rather than a pub, and might be for port.

Whilst we can see most of the detail, clarity and ease of viewing would be helped a lot if the background was less busy.      As we're always saying, taking pix of clear glass isn't easy at the best of times, so subjects such as these need plain backgrounds - grey or black perhaps - that will help us to see details to best effect.

You might try the Replacements.com site, but it can take a lot of time wading through copious patterns, and of course these might well not be from the U.K. anyway.             That particular site shows glasses designed for a variety of drinks, so that might help narrow down which sort of booze this shape of glass was intended for.

No idea as to exactly when this style of stem started, but would suggest it was most likely Victorian rather than earlier.

[Jeffingtons]

There's plenty of wear on the bases. What two also have is a misting inside the baluster like something has leached from the glass.

Re: photo quality, I haven't been able to find time or space to take better pics. At some point I shall have a chance to set up a photo shoot with the SLR and take some clearer, better lit images. I'll post them when I get round to it.

[Paul S.]

before I started using the white opaque plastic background with under light LED, I did some quite passable pix using simply a large sheet of grey or charcoal paper from somewhere like Lorimers  -  with obviously a touch of light to suit.            The quality of your pix is o.k., it's just that the background is a bit distracting.

Could be the glassblowers last breath   -  probably not, but it reminded me of the Wedgwood bulbous 'Sandringham' candlestick, where internally the bulb part is almost always misty - due, so they say, to the breath of the glassblower - but who knows, maybe just apocryphal.

[Ekimp]

I had a Wedgwood RSW152 pattern candle holder with the bulbous stem, depending on the temperature, little droplets would form on the inside of the bulb from liquid condensing out of the gas - maybe moisture from the glass blowers breath  I can’t remember if it was also clouded but I have Victorian glasses similar to the one in this thread that also have clouding inside the bubble stem. From my experience with the RSW152, I thought the clouding was from constant condensing and evaporation of liquid inside the bubble, over time, causing a bloom like you get inside vases.

[Lustrousstone]

Any moisture in the blower's breath or even the air would have evaporated well before the bubble was closed at the temperature of hot glass

[Ekimp]

So when the moisture (liquid water) evaporates it turns into water vapour (gaseous water) that would be in the bubble before it’s closed, that water vapour could then condense back into water droplets when it cools. I can’t remember much of the physics of evaporation etc but water or other liquids can exist as a hot gas.

[Lustrousstone]

Water evaporates at 100 degC. The glass is at 500-100 degC, so any water is likely to be negligible

[Ekimp]

When water evaporates it doesn’t just go away, it changes form - into a gas - it can then condense back to liquid water if the conditions are right. Gaseous water and liquid water is the same stuff, even at 500°c.

Water boils at 100°c (if at one atmosphere pressure) but it evaporates at all sorts of temperatures (such as from the surface of the sea). As we have been told recently regarding weather and global warming, the hotter the air, the more water vapour (gas) it can hold.

It may well be the case that condensation in the bubble stems are nothing to do with the blowing process, but unless someone knows the physics or chemistry of it then I don’t think it can be dismissed so easily.

[Lustrousstone]

No it doesn't go away but at the temperature of hot glass all the gases in the bubble, including the water vapour, have expanded immensely, so there is very liitle of anything in a bubble. A glass blower only uses a tiny puff to create a large bubble of glass. Expansion does most of the work.