Topic: Etched/Engraved Vase

[NevB]

It is uranium glass but also, by my calculations, its density is 3.4gms/cm3 which puts it in the lead glass range, it also rings. The "pontil mark" is indeed just an indentation left behind after the base was smoothed. The wear on the base looks genuine and overall it looks to me to be from the 1920's/30's and European. I don't think it's supposed to be a copy of anything earlier but the more modern ones are copies of it, but who knows for sure.

[English weather]

The two items I pictured have been in storage for a long time.

It just happens that 4 days prior to this thread starting I came across them again so knew where they were.

Having now brought them home and put a UV light to them I have to agree they are Uranium glass and of lead content. (My memory of them was obviously faded). I do have some more pieces but of more run-of-the-mill shapes....don't know where they are though.

[bat20]

I’ve got a few of these and see them around regularly,it would be nice to know their exact age and source ?,Sometimes you see the flared cylinder shape being passed of as American 18th century flip glasses,which they are not.

[NevB]

Yes bat20 there are a lot of similar ones about and several posts on here discussing their origin. There seem to be differences in the way they are made, snapped pontils or smoothed pontils and fire polished rims/ground and polished rims.

[English weather]

There seem to be differences in the way they are made, snapped pontils or smoothed pontils and fire polished rims/ground and polished rims.

I still do not think that the indentation on the base is a pontil mark. Maybe I just don't remember but I don't think I have ever seen a "smoothed" pontil or even heard of the technique.

The punty rod would have held the glass (base) where the trumpet vase meets the base. Placed on the Marver for the trumpet to be applied.

The top is polished because the trumpet was pushed onto the base from the top "which was still a "bubble" held onto the punty at the top. Once applied to the base, the top was broken off the punty then cut to length and the rim polished.

[flying free]

Another version here
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264986233564?hash=item3db2690adc:g:N70AAOSwVYZf4jqe

I think Old Glassman said on another thread that he'd seen them being made in Spain a few years prior to his post.

m

[NevB]

This is a site I pasted to a previous post, video 2 is particularly interesting.


https://www.discontinueddesigns.co.uk/product-category/thomas-webb/

[flying free]

Thank you NevB.  That's a great video!  Lovely to watch. Amazing skill all round. Glass making is such an incredible art.

m

[NevB]

Yes m incredible skill. It shows the different uses of the blowing iron and the pontil/punty iron. I think I read that the word "punty" was first used in the North-east and it is the local pronunciation of pontil, pronounced "pontee" in French