Topic: Tall wine glass, mid to late 20th Century.

[keith]

Sold as late Victorian ( a gift from my brother ) hollow stem with ground down foot rim, the etching is very white and the glass is thin despite a nice ring, has anyone seen something similar ?

[chopin-liszt]

The etching looks like rather sophisticated ptero(some missing letters) - fern stuff.
The extra bits with lily pads and roots make it just a bit special.
Is this style of etching not normally considered to be Scottish? I don't know if it happened as a cottage industry, but some of the shabbier stuff around certainly suggests it.

Edited to add:
But now I'm thinking it looks a lot more like wisteria than ferns!

More editing, after more peering:-
Strange foot grinding. Might it have been a folded foot somebody thought was odd and ground down?

[keith]

It is Wisteria, I wondered that about the foot 

[Ekimp]

Nice looking glass.

In Miller’s collecting glass, there is an example of a similar elegant engraved goblet with spreading foot. It says “the spreading foot is distinctive of drinking glasses of the 1870s”. It says they were parts of a set, often given as wedding gifts.

I too wondered if yours originally had a folded foot, the foot looks very thin. I have a victorian engraved goblet with a similar simple clean form and thin glass but finely engraved with ferns (very much better than the usual engraving quality). My goblet has a similar spreading foot, but the foot rim is folded.

[keith]

It doesn't have the feel, weight or colour of an old piece, can't see any tool marks on the bowl or foot  puzzled now 

[NevB]

Looks Victorian to me. Is that a small bump on the rim?, the remains of a shear mark.

[keith]

Think that's the light, no shear marks, very uniform 

[Ekimp]

Here’s my goblet, bit more stumpy than I remembered. Feels very light for its size, just over 5 inches tall, but there isn’t much weight in the hollow stem and foot. When flicked it has a sustained bong rather than a ping, you can feel the bowl vibrating. I recon 1870s due to the spreading foot, nearer the 1880 end due to the ferns.

[keith]

Is the etching on yours very white, I heard that this was a sign of more modern pieces ?

[Ekimp]

I wouldn’t have said so, it looks white in the top photo but only due to the light catching it. I heard something similar about the colour of engraving but only on a Bargain Hunt type programme. Can’t quite remember but think the context in that case was when trying to determine if engraving on a genuine Georgian glass was done at the time or added later.

When talking about etching, I might have misunderstood, I would say my glass has been wheel engraved, rather than etched?