Topic: Glass Restoration Topic

[Ekimp]

As John showed, with the amount of work that goes into a repair with metal staples  demonstrates the respect for and value the item originally held for its owner, they are not only attractive, they are part of its history.

Sounds like Kintsugi My only piece of pot has staples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi

[flying free]

Ekimp I was thinking along exactly those lines.

A friend did up an ancient manor house and all repairs were done with heritage input.  The repairs had to be left to be  visible so it could be seen where additions had been made (wood/metal/stone), not 'touched up' to blend in etc.  It looked amazingly beautiful.

[flying free]

I think though that I could only ever accept perspex(reversible) insets to fill gaps in glass in order to show the whole shape.  And that on an item that was irreplaceable and had historic/scientific interest.

[Ekimp]

The repairs had to be left to be  visible so it could be seen where additions had been made (wood/metal/stone), not 'touched up' to blend in etc.  It looked amazingly beautiful.

That seems like a good approach.

Sometimes you don’t know what you are looking at in museums, historic houses, galleries etc - is it original or not? If it’s not clear what restoration has taken place they should show before and after pictures.

Being a bit cynical, I tend to think the people who see an item as being improved by an invisible restoration are mainly those who don’t know it has been restored.

[flying free]

I have been seeing many more - really noticeably many more - items in museum collections online that are damaged and where I can see the cracks, chips damage very easily.  I find that really good to see!  I think they show the soul and the history of the piece and that it has historical value.

I should be honest, of course it would be lovely to own a whole collection of undamaged pieces.  However, there is a conflict to those feelings   I have a clutch of very old, rare pieces, undamaged.  Pieces I have never seen in a museum collection, or if similar,  rare, so e.g. one museum collection only.  A couple I think are unique.  I have mixed feelings around owning them and think they probably should be in a museum collection to be kept safe. I worry about inadvertently damaging them.

[glassobsessed]

Sometimes items get damaged in museum collections, there have been a few news stories like that in recent years. Then recently news of multiple thefts from within a museum's collections. Just goes to show that there are probably few hard and fast answers here.

[flying free]

Sometimes items get damaged in museum collections, there have been a few news stories like that in recent years. Then recently news of multiple thefts from within a museum's collections. Just goes to show that there are probably few hard and fast answers here.

You're right.  And of course I see many other rare pieces in various collectors collections or being sold at high end auctions so...  as collectors we're probably in as good a place as anywhere to have the item.  Maybe better sometimes!

There is also the issue of items being donated to museums and ending up in store and never seen anyway.

On second thoughts - I'll hang on to them

[Ekimp]

Spreading the risk, there must be lots of nice stuff squirrelled away in private collections.

If I remember correctly, entropy is the tendency of objects or systems to decay to a more simple state. Basically nothing lasts forever….