Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: tropdevin on January 18, 2012, 01:42:43 PM
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This is an unusual inkwell (http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-53481-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5574631383&toolid=10001&campid=5335820906&customid=&icep_item=130629906753&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229508&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg), I think. The canes are very like those found in the Whitefriars 1951 Triplex and 1953 EIIR weights. I have a very similar inkwell, but mine has a row of Whitefriars style canes centred by '7/6' shapes - maybe because Walsh Walsh workers moved to Whitefriars when Walsh Walsh closed in 1950. It also has heart canes like those found in Whitefriars weights. My guess is that the eBay inkwell is a Whitefriars piece from around 1950. Anyone else seen one of this design?
Alan
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Although some canes would seem to signify whitefriars and the colours also. Have you seen the cane that looks like a 4 petaled flower before anywhere? Yes mid 20th century.
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Okay, the auction has finished. As Alan notes the colours point to Whitefriars rather than one of the other contenders and yet there's something - that I can't quite put my finger on - about the cane structure that doesn't quite ring true(?), at least in comparison with other '50's weights that I can examine closely. Is Roy watching? Peter
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Hi Peter
My view is that this is a Walsh-Walsh Bottle and I cannot see any obvious Whitefriars canes.
Having said that I will now go and look at the Magic Box
These actions could be the wrong way round !!!!
Roy
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Hi All
I believe I can match the centre cane with my Walsh-Walsh canes and I certainly do not have any Whitefriars canes that match this bottle.
Roy
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Thanks Roy. For my money that makes it Walsh-Walsh.
That 'Magic Box' of your's is a wondrous thing; a great reference point for so many of our Whitefriars & 'old English' ID questions. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Peter
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Hi Roy
I recall having a very similar discussion with you a few years ago when I first got my bottle, and we found some near identical canes to those in mine in some EIIR weights. I still feel this is from the period when Walsh Walsh closed, and Whitefriars began to rekindled their paperweight production - ie 1950 -1953. I'll search through my many thousands of images when time permits and see if I can find any relevant ones.
Alan
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Hi Alan
You may well be right but then if a Walsh-Walsh worker makes a Bottle with Walsh -Walsh canes using a Whitefriars Pot & chair does that make it a Whitefriars bottle?
:ho: :ho: :ho:
Roy
PS Does the base look Whitefriars?
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Hi Roy.
Good question! I suppose that if an item emerges from the Whitefriars factory, with Whitefriars label, sold by Whitefriars, then it would legally be a Whitefriars piece. But as you say, what if it was made by an ex-Walsh Walsh worker, using Walsh Walsh canes...a purist would feel the parentage was Walsh Walsh, no doubt.
I think there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that Whitefriars used Walsh Walsh canes - or at least Walsh Walsh workers to make their canes - in the early 1950s. The image below shows (left and middle columns) close-ups of four canes from Whitefriars EIIR paperweights, and canes from later Whitefriars paperweights on the right, which are quite distinct in design. The red cane top left and one ring in the bottle we were debating are very similar, and are surely from the same source. The bottom left and centre canes clearly owe much to the Walsh Walsh '7/6' cane process (of folding two colours of glass together to get the design), yet appear in a Whitefriars paperweight. I suspect these bottles were made at Whitefriars, quite possibly by ex Walsh Walsh workers who used some Walsh Walsh canes in them, and maybe before the 1951 paperweights.
The base of my bottle has a thin foot rim, and is polished concave - but as it is not a paperweight, and is probably an early piece, that is not too surprising. I wish these people had kept better records!
Alan
(http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w155/rosismum/th_WhitefriarsEIIR.jpg) (http://s175.photobucket.com/albums/w155/rosismum/?action=view¤t=WhitefriarsEIIR.jpg)
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This thread's discussion about the migration of Walsh-Walsh workers and canes to Whitefriars in the early 1950s has been informative and raised several scenarios that make the hunt for provenance much more interesting than a 'simple(?)' attribution to one or other factory.
The questions posed by Roy about what products belong to whom under different scenarios have relatively straight forward answers under Australian Industrial & IP law (which probably mirror those in Britain). Products deriving from employment are deemed solely the property of the employer - e.g. made in the Whitefriars factory by employees during their regular hours - unless there is an agreement to the contrary. The latter would cover the practice that appears to have been relatively common whereby glass workers were allowed/encouraged to make 'friggers' in their 'spare' time. If it came to a dispute, these items would be the ruled as property of the workers.
In relation to the bottle that started this thread, a picture of the base is attached. It is smooth and concave with no sign of the 'button' often ascribed (although not unique?) to Whitefriars' weights. The bottle's diameter is 85mm at it's widest point - viz. the base, tapering thereafter - and height (with stopper) 145mm. The base profile image shows a small foot. But for the number of concentric rows, the set-up and canes in base and stopper are matching.
Re-reading the chapters 'Inkwells' and 'Unknown makers' in Robert Hall's 'Old English Paperweights' - looking for profile descriptions and/or canes resembling those of the current bottle - I'm reminded of how much isn't known about so many things. As Alan bemoans (with some licence on my part) "Oh that there might have been better records kept!' Sophie Boyron's article in the November 2010 PCC Newsletter talked about 'the erosion of information' and the importance of efforts to preserve what information remains (e.g. the 'Scotland's Glass' website). Arguably as current day collectors we all share the responsibilities of stewardship to preserve what information we can.
Roy has matched the central cane of this bottle with his Walsh-Walsh collection. The hunt goes on in relation to the other canes used. Any matches will improve the probability of an accurate attribution. .. Or will it at the end of the day be put into that 'unknown makers'-box which, I suspect, is fuller than we'd like to think.
Peter
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Hi Peter
Presently in France, so I do not have my reference books etc, but it is worth bearing in mind that Bob Hall's book was written some time ago now, and that quite a lot of the information had been provided by Anne Anderson (whom he does not really credit), based on her work from years before. For example, there is relatively little about Richardson, whereas they made a great number of paperweights. And around a quarter of the Bacchus chapter weights are probably made by a different factory. It is the best book around on Old English paperweights, but there are many errors of omission and commission.
Incidentally, I wrote an article about my bottle in the PCC Newsletter a few years ago.
Another point that Roy may be able to respond to: any idea what proportion of cane designs from Whitefriars and from Walsh Walsh are represented in your wonderful box? Is it 1%, 5%, or maybe somewhat more?
Alan
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Hi Alan
My Box contains 3100 Canes/Lampwork from 82 Makers, nearly 40 of which have ceased making.
There are 200 Whitefriars canes,6.5%
There are 405 Walsh-Walsh canes from Three different sources all around Stourbridge.One set came from a Walsh-Walsh worker,One set from a Stourbridge Auction and and the third set from an antique dealer near Stourbridge,but they all have some identical canes so I am convinced that they come from the Arculus/Walsh-Walsh stable if spread over a number of years, 13%.
Roy
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Hi Roy. What I was trying to get at was what proportion of the canes Whitefriars ever made were represented in your magic box. But I think your answer helps. A back of envelope calculation (which others may be able to improve) says that a single cane pull gives about enough millefiori pieces to make 4 or 5 paperweights. Now, how many paperweights did Whitefriars make? Using the same back of envelope, I estimate 30 years x 40 weeks x 25 paperweights per week on average, making 30,000 paperweights. So you need 6,000 canes, at least.....now some will appear very similar, but others get bundled into complex canes....so I estimate that there are between 5,000 and 10,000 different Whitefriars canes represented out there in paperweights. The magic box - as great an achievement as it is - is missing nearly every cane that they ever made! Consequently the absence of a cane from the Whitefriars set tells you very little about whether it is a Whitefriars cane. Incidentally, a reference book with 50 images per page would be feasible, at 100 to 200 pages.
The canes in the EIIR and Triplex weights are different from later canes, and contain a few strange designs such as double or even triple concentric loop centres. I wonder whether this is the Walsh Walsh influence, and whether a close study of these would show any continuity.....I feel an article coming on!
Alan
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Hi Alan
You should have been in the Civil Service. The skill of guessing six or so numbers multiplying them together, dividing them by the number you first thought of and coming up with the final answer I think shows that statistics can prove anything. I wish I was good at sums!!
I am quite surprised how many of my 130 Whitefriars Items contain canes from my collection which according to your statistics should be most unlikely.
Should be .02%. This of course doesn't include Silhouettes which often contain hundreds of canes each.Is that in my favour or yours ??
I think I should stop here as I would still like my Whitefriars and Ysart Weights next meeting
Regards
Roy
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Hmmmm. Not sure about this "number of canes" thingy. I may have misunderstood, but ...
Roy's collection of canes show cane types. The number of Roy's types needs to be compared the total types that were produced. But the estimate of that number becomes rather more complex if we consider that a given cane type, with the same colouring, may have been pulled many times. Is there any evidence to say that this did not happen?
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Hi Kev.
I agree - it all gets more complicated if Whitefriars could manage to pull 'identical' canes. I don't know how easy that would be, as individual cane pulls can vary along their length (but I guess they only need to be good enough to look the same to us collectors). Any experts out there who can shed light on this? Or on the total number of paperweights that Whitefriars actually made?
Alan
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Hi Alan
How many is a much more interesting question. I think that we credit Whitefriars and Ysart for that matter with far more Weights than were actually produced. I suppose Info from Perthshire would give us a better understanding and there must be more people around to supply the answers.
Once they had supplied the shops with a certain number of each design they surely stopped making until they needed to replace them,
Hence the issue quantity was nearly always higher than the actual made quantity.
Roy
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One popular source* posits that back-of-the-envelope calculations give an approximation that's likely within an order of magnitude of 'the answer'. Ergo, from the earlier calculation - without querying any of the assumptions therein - we might expect to find between 500 and 100,000 Whitefriars canes out there? I could go with that, although I'm not sure that I'm any the wiser. [*Wikipedia. BTW ..The term's origins are ascribed to the realm of physics.]
In relation to Roy's collection of Whitefriars canes. In the one realm of statistics that I have experience of - biomedical science; where the population under study is estimated as close to seven billion - a sample size of 200 is recognised as a valuable source of information, a basis for evidence that might support (or not) hypotheses and a useful contribution to the never-ending pursuit of understanding. Roy's collection is valuable for exactly the same reasons.
Returning to the topic that the thread has morphed into, How many Whitefriars cane-types might there be? Facts about production practices at Whitefriars would be useful. How often were canes pulled? How many were made in a session, day, week or month? Were canes (other than mosaics) made specifically for to a new design or did designs make use of a stockpile of pre-existing canes? And a question that strikes me as particularly relevant - How many cane moulds did Whitefriars use? After all, it's the moulds that begin the cane-making process and provide many of those detailed characteristics that we use to differentiate between factories. So many questions! Once again, 'Oh for better records!' Former Whitefriars employees might be able to fill some of the gaps.
Peter
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More information of how cane was pulled would also be critical. Depending upon the size of the bundle being pulled out a single cane could be pulled out to a length of one arm span or to 10 meters. Using 2mm-4mm slices in a set-up that yields wildly different numbers of slices available in the same pattern.
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Alan. Thanks for the pointer to the PCC Newsletter (No.96, April 2008) article about your bottle - located thanks to the archives on the PCC website (Members' Area). I can see why you thought of this piece when you saw the bottle that began the thread; the colours are very similar. Whilst constrained by the resolution of the PDF images from the newletter I can't match the canes within the two bottles .. No surprise. (BTW. The article's image of the Richardson '7/6' cane is the clearest I've seen. Thanks!)
Whilst looking for this article I came across others you've written, including your discussion of new 'OE' classifications. It drives home the point that there were many more sources of paperweights in England during the mid-twentieth century than the four we talk about most often; Arculus, Richardson, Walsh Walsh and Whitefriars.
In looking more closely at the canes in the latest bottle I see that one is a 20-tooth cog. (First concentric ring from centre- first image below) Most of the cogs I see elsewhere have 4, 8, 16, or occasionally 12 teeth. A 20-tooth cog appears in another weight I have - second attached image [and might also be within the base of your bottle(?!] Is this feature of any significance for attribution purposes?
Peter