Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => Bohemia, Czechoslovakia, Czech Republic, Austria => Topic started by: Frank on June 03, 2005, 07:30:12 PM
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One: Probably Czech :)
Two: Delightful primitive forms. 8)
Three: My latest addition to my collection. :o
Any ideas on maker :?:
http://tinypic.com/5ansyu :wink:
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Czech alexandrite glass , 1920's looks like a copy, is it frank? if so most prob made by Frantisek Halama
a link http://www.halama-glass.cz/
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It looks like the nude pieces made by Desna which is Czech, I think.
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For lots more examples of all things Halama and Desna, see:
www.crystalbelleonline.com
Most of the stuff on ebay is probably from these factories.
I had an antique shop trying to sell me one here last year for $295 Aus, but available for $52 US at Crystalbelle.
Obviously plenty of buyers out there though, have a look at the Malachite vase here for $425, which you can find at Crystalbelle for $190.
www.decodame.com/decorativearts/glass_crystal.htm
Frank,
It should have "FH" in script initials etched on the base (Frantisek Halama).
Those sold by Crystalbelle also have "Belle" etched on base to identify the product they have retailed (Yes, I bought a vaeline glass version, and I like it!).
This is the story of my voyage of discovery of the "Three Nudes" box:
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,102.0.html
Rob
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No marks or wear.
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Frank,
In Halama's catalogue sheets that I have, the design is called "Summer Nights" - something that would be very welcome on a cold, wet night here in Oz!
The design on this "caddy" (as Halama calls it) is FH 1650, with Aquamarine colour being design FH 4001650 and Lapis FH 10001650.
According to the catalogue, it is also available in crystal, citrin, uranium, jade and alexandrite colours.
Rob
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Thank you :D
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I first noticed a Malachite piece at an antiques fair down in the Cotswolds last summer. It was reasonably priced but I had a feeling there was something "wrong" with it. The dealer didn't know enough about it to convince me to buy it, which was probably a good thing. Then I started noticing similar pieces appearing at other fairs and it became clear that these were likely to be repros, as this and the other thread has confirmed.
congrats i think you've solved your puzzle. Halama is a most likely source of pressed powder boxes with nude ladies. If FH is the signature it would suggest that it is a recent piece. Pre-war pieces would not be signed, neither would pieces from the communist era (>'90) when the factory was part of a large industrial conglomerate.
It is a pity that some people seem to be taking advantage factories like Halama and and misrepresenting their current production as antiques. This is not in Halama's interests, but as Ivo suggests, it looks as if they are making an effort to sign their current production to ensure that people are not misled.
This doesn't mean that everyone who is selling the reproductions is necessarily aware that they are repros. They may have bought them in good faith.
However, just as we know that down in Whitstable Bay it is very easy to add a signature to the base of an unsigned TK Maxx masterpiece, it is also not unknown for the unscrupulous to grind away the base of a signed piece to make it unattributable and therefore ostensibly more interesting! So if I were looking at one of these pieces I would be inclined to examine the base very carefully, particularly if there were no signature, to try to establish whether or not it had been signed when it left the factory!
:D
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Yes. I believe that the person trying to sell me the overpriced piece had actually bought it in the belief that it could have been a genuine old piece, and thet she had certainly paid more than the equivalent of $52 US for it at an auction out here. (And presumably not much gets all the way out here at the other end of the earth!)
I guess this is one more instance of the value of the internet and this site - suddenly there is the opportunity to call on world-wide expertise for our inexperienced, (perhaps naive), questions, and advice is offered freely and with great tolerance.
The discussions are always interesting, and it is fascinating to see the level of knowledge which some people acquire in what, to me, seem fairly obscure fields of knowledge.
Thanks for letting me play with you! :D
Rob
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Della, we both had these boxes but I cannot find the thread in which we discussed them, another old thread is here:
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,102.0.html
What stirred my interest was this one on eBay and then the finishing price...
http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110109092009
The same seller is also offering a Snow White & Seven Dwarfs, similar to the one in the Chateau Liberec auction (2801) €40-50 and I find a 1930's date hard to take for the subject - though not impossible.
All the on-line retailers selling these boxes are dead links now - so know way to prove the claims regarding the colours
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Ooh, :o :o amazing, Frank.........I wish ::)
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,3559.0.html this is where we discussed ours.
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FH has been very fortunate.
He managed to recoup all the family's assets, historical moulds etc, after 1990. So who is to say not original, after all they have stayed in production throughout the Communist period, and whether signed or not, one can hardly say "not right", the original family are back in possession, the designs are those commissioned by family members. It is splitting hairs, in order to justify secondary market prices, that fuels controversy over fake, repro or re-issue.
If all the Whitefriars moulds were with the Powells, or Hogans, or whoever designed them, there would probably be less fuss from collectors, if family members started producing items from those moulds, than there has been about Jonathan Anderson production of "bricklayers".
Value is relative.... some Sklo Union collectors would be horrified to know how long some of their treasures were in production, and two frequently sought-after Vizner items survived in full production for at least 24 years....
Should glass carry warnings stating " the value of your investments can go up and down" just as the FSA advertise in the UK???
Regards,
Marcus
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Should glass carry warnings stating " the value of your investments can go up and down"
No. But it is unscrupulous sellers taking modern production and selling it as old that create the problem, combined with manufacturers who should, in this information age, provide such information on-line.
Anyway, what I am interested in is getting this colour version of the box at around 20-40 euros. I know they have been in continuous production for n years but so what. Where is the production data.
In any case, volume of production means absolutely nothing, it is the number of collectors that sets the prices. There are unique one offs that rarely get into treble figures and bits of Lalique produced in 6 figure volumes that fech several hundred.
One of our brethren actually considered this box as the worst piece of glass in their collection... which is how I acquired it - sure it is no design masterpiece but as a lover of more primitive figurative art it is right up my street. I suppose it could also be seen as a symbol of the aesthetic of silicon body sculpture.
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Where is the production data.
Always more important to keep accurate records, on who is doing what, where and when, in totalitarian states.
When it comes to production matters, you can have some idea, of exports etc, but little idea of how much was produced of particular patterns on particular days. (unlike Whitefriars it seems).
What makes any assessment of Czech production very difficult, is that there now exists a law, passed after the communist collapse, which means political papers, company documents etc, can be held, with no public access (for fifty years and can be re-newed), and which makes the thirty-year rule on access to UK Cabinet papers seem lax.
This is why information regarding a company like Kralik, whose papers still exist, cannot be accessed by anyone, despite the company finally folding in 1943.
I'm not convinced by the sellers taking modern production and selling it as old
argument.
Whether a Vizner vase dates from the first days production and any others date between start, and finish of production, it is still the same product. Who can say that the modern product (say 1995 production) is not the same as the old product (1961), and why does it matter?
Why manufacturers should provide info, and who for, is also a complex issue. Obviously commercial issues are a factor, but to expect manufacturers to supply info, merely to assist the policing of a secondary market-place, suggests a level of corporate responsibility, that arguably is un-necessary, and paternalistic in the extreme.
Regards,
Marcus
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Who can say that the modern product (say 1995 production) is not the same as the old product (1961), and why does it matter?
That is a habit of the collecting community and heightened by the collecting of production goods while still being produced and over a long period of time. In one hundred years the difference in time will be virtually irrelevant (more likely concerned if the factory is under or above sea level :) ) . On the other hand disinformation by dealers taking current production and convincing the world it is 50+ years old in order to sell it above the retail price. I recently watched a lampwork set that is currently made and sold in the UK for £12 fetch over 90 pounds on eBay. The seller had a substantial collection including a few genuinely old items and pushed it as his childhood collection from the 1960's. He was clearly believed.
Why manufacturers should provide info, and who for, is also a complex issue. Obviously commercial issues are a factor, but to expect manufacturers to supply info, merely to assist the policing of a secondary market-place, suggests a level of corporate responsibility, that arguably is un-necessary, and paternalistic in the extreme.
Actually, I said combined with manufacturers who should, in this information age, provide such information on-line
the empasis intended on the information age element. I consider any business that does not put its entire production on-line to be seriously stupid - the web being the fastest growing sales channel as well as crime channel. That most tend to delete their deleted product lines is ridiculous as storage costs are irrelevant but there are, I agree, many and complex arguments about that.
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I suppose it could also be seen as a symbol of the aesthetic of silicon body sculpture.
Is this an exceedingly polite term for breast implants? >:D ;D
Carolyn
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and maybe those little pads Japanese women have put in their bottoms...
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Certainly the figures exhibit more 'bumps' than 'curves' and not just the breasts hence the wider definition, I never worry about being too polite, a tit is a tit. ;D
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Unless it is a bird of course...
when it might be greater, marshier, coalier, or even just bluer than your average tit