Topic: Sam Herman Vase?

[tmmorg]

This is my first post so apologies if it is the wrong place and also if the images are not the best quality. I'm still learning. I recently purchased this vase, purporting to be signed by Samuel J Herman in 1970. However, it is not like any of the other pieces of his, which I  have seen. I mainly collect Mdina, so the similarities were not lost on me. Any thoughts regarding the signature and form would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks in advance,
Tom

[Anne]

Hello Tom and welcome to the board. For unidentified pieces we need them put into Glass, once identified they get moved to the relevant country forum for discussion. I'll move this over for you now.

[tmmorg]

Thank you, Anne

[Anne]

Now we need Sue (chopin-liszt) or one of the other Sam Herman aficionados to come and take a look.

[tmmorg]

Thank you, Anne... Fingers crossed!!!

[chopin-liszt]

I've just looked at my 5 examples of the signature and I don't think this fits in with any of them.
Does the 7 have the bar across it's middle? Sam's do.
Also, this looks terribly like Mdina. It would be an unusual sort of experimental Fish.
It doesn't look like Sam's work.
His signature does vary, but is mostly very sloped.

Sorry to be the bearer of non-Sam tidings, but I'd suggest heading back to Malta for your Id. 
But also, wait until you hear what Greg might say. If Greg doesn't agree with me, I would revise my opinion.

[tmmorg]

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply Sue and for checking your own pieces for comparison. Don't worry about being the bearer of bad news, I hoped I'd stumbled across a very unusual SH piece, but seemingly if something is so unusual, it probably isn't right.
Many thanks again for your help!

[Greg.]

Hi Tom,

Just out of curiosity, would you be able to add a photo of the top, looking down into the neck? I need to pop out shortly, but will try and take a look later today.

Thanks
Greg

[tmmorg]

Hi Greg,

Hope this is good enough, I'm not the best at photographing glass. Thank you very much for taking the time to have a look. I've included a close up of the inside, where it appears to be cased in clear glass. Not sure how useful that is though, so please disregard if it tells you nothing.

Many thanks again,
Tom

[chopin-liszt]

Been doing a bit of thinking. 
I don't know of any piece where Sam used a dip mould. It wasn't really his style to make something so controlled- he liked working *with* the hot glass itself. Not controlling it or being controlled by it.
The colour of the clear glass is very clean and fairly new looking. I know less about newer Mdina than the early stuff, but during the late '90s, early'00s, they did seem to be doing revivals of older styles.
George Elliot also made "Fish" shaped bottles very like the shape of this.
The lettering on the signature here looks rather shaky at the man bit of Herman. I very strongly suspect it is an amateur addition.