Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Frank on April 15, 2005, 10:02:59 AM
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Another bit of weird glass use
(http://www.ysartglass.com/ebay/Targetgreen.jpg)
These were made in different colours and filled with feathers. They must have left a lot of glass fragments behind after use! “NB Glass Works, Perth” is moulded around the middle. Used from about 1870 to 1900 when clay pigeons were invented. This one is a pale bluish-green, has the flat base and well moulded letters the right way up.
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I've looked at this item and can't work out how it survives!! Surely it must be the rarest thing in the glass-world! Where was it kept? How is it still here?? They're can't be many left...surely?
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Some of the rarer ones sell for several thousand dollars because of their rarity. Now and again a barrel of these turn up in a warehouse and alter the relative rarities. The Moncrieff ones usually sell around £120 €175 $230, some higher others lower. Although one recently sold for just over 50 pounds as the seller would only accept UK bidders.
They also turn up in underwater digs - because of the problems of broken glass on farm land, they were often launched over water and thus had a good survival rate if the shooter was a bad shot. A lot of Moncrieff ones were recovered by divers when the Forth rail bridge was built. In my Moncrieff article I mention another lake location in Scotland that would probably make a profitable excavation. It was where an annual target ball contest was held.
It probably says something about the glass-works owners leisure pursuits - I can easily picture John Moncrieff spending hours perfecting the design. There are some where the N.B. Glassworks embossing has some inverted letters and several variations from different moulds - I wonder what happened to the poor mould maker when the inverted letters were noticed.
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Frank — I have unearthed a serious mouldmaker's error from the 1930s which I am certain was never discovered. I only noticed when looking for something else. I will enlighten everyone when I have some reasonable photographs to back up my anecdote.
Bernard C. 8)
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There's another glass item I place in the same category as target balls-- fire grenades. Ever heard of them? Search for 'fire grenade*' on eBay, there are usually many for sale (caution, some are now reproduced). Here's a snazzy one (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3970215372). Older ones were usually filled with water or salt water, newer ones sometimes contain carbon tet, so watch out! They were meant to be thrown at fires; the glass breaks and releases the fire-quenching agent.
Category is Glass Meant to be Destroyed. Or maybe, Glass Ephemera?
--ian
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Grenades are not as rare as target balls. If you look around in France where most homes had open fires you will probably turn up a few grenades - with the original filling. They were also in use for a longer period of time.
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Fire ever holds a fascination and fire related collectibles allways sell well.
Would folks agree this is one too http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4039&item=3971102921
I would not of thought too effective because of the thick glass and wire frame, it reminds me of the crochet covers used to convert expensive burnt out light bulbs into decorations around 1900.
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reminds me of the crochet covers used to convert expensive burnt out light bulbs into decorations around 1900.
:shock: :shock: :shock: What????? :?: :!: :?:
Frank, any pics of these 'crochet covers'? Or are you just pulling our legs? :shock: :roll:
Actually, I think the 'fire fighting' thingy looks like a little model hot-air ballon :lol:
Leni
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Being one of those collectors who loves the 'oddball' I collected lightbulbs and being a lightbulb collector that loves the 'oddball', I collected the broken ones with covers or with new fillings such as, model villages, ships etc. Sadly all of that stuff got sold off before I got into photographing everything.
Here is a lessa elaborate one http://bulbcollector.com/gateway/Incandescent_Lamps/Carbon_Filament/1881-1900/image/c0042.jpg
There were also companies that recycled light bulbs, they cut a hole in the glass, removed the broken filament, fitted a new filament with clips, fitted a glass tube over the hole, suck out the air and then sealed the tube.
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:shock: I'm stunned :shock: I have but one word to say :shock:
WHY? :? :shock: :?
The idea of repairing broken lightbulbs is logical, even though it seems strage to us today, in the 'throwaway' society in which we live :x But making crochet covers for spent lightbulbs? :shock: WHY? :roll:
Joking apart, was there seriously a reason for the crochet covers, Frank? :?
Leni :shock:
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If you spent a months wages on one light bulb you might be disinclined to throw it away when it burnt out.
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If you spent a months wages on one light bulb you might be disinclined to throw it away when it burnt out.
Well, yes; which is why I understand the idea of repairing them. But do you mean to say that if they couldn't afford to get them repaired they just made a little crochet cover and kept them - to put on display, or something? :shock:
And my kids think I'm barmy for keeping old jam jars and bottles :oops: :roll:
Leni
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Early days of electric light saw many of the working class having their single electric light fitted over their kitchen table so that they could do home work. In the earliest days the bare wires would be trailed up the wall and across the ceiling in a wooden channel. They were given free cabling but would have to pay a very high price for their electricity. The middle classes could pay for their wiring, get cheaper electricity and would usually have bare light bulbs so that they could show off their wealth. It was probably this social group that decorated their bulbs and they would be hung over the mantlepiece as a testament to how long they had owned electric light. The lightbulbs were less efficient then but still lasted around 1,000 hours or longer.
The rich would have highly ornamental bulbs or shades and I doubt were inclined to decorate the dead bulbs. They also paid the least for electricity or owned their own generator.
Fancy bulbs (All hand blown, some mould blown, circa 1900) http://www.ysartglass.com/zdbk/Bulbs/vvg/vvga7.htm
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Fancy bulbs (All hand blown, some mould blown, circa 1900) http://www.ysartglass.com/zdbk/Bulbs/vvg/vvga7.htm
Oh, those are so *pretty*! :shock: :D
Why don't we have pretty light bulbs these days :? :roll:
On the other hand, how efficient were they? And were they more fragile, or more liable to 'blow'?
Leni
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They gave out less light than modern bulbs and more heat, so it was not wasted.
For the most part they are not as fragile as modern bulbs, in so far as the few I have dropped bounced without breaking... try that with a new Chinese one. Because they were made with greater care the weakness of the manufacturing methods was compensated by greater tolerances.
1,000 was considered the norm in the early 1900's but many lasted a lot longer with several reports from test of 5,000 hours or more. But the record goes to this one which is still burning http://www.centennialbulb.org/index.htm after over 900,000 hours.
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Leni said: Why don't we have pretty light bulbs these days
Wellllllll....funny you should say that. I keep meaning to pop into Habitat (I think that's the place) to buy one of their 'fancy lightbulbs'!
I think (suddenly I feel unsure...did I dream it??) they have groovy bulbs with the filaments made into colourful flowers...and other things...
Did I dream it?? :shock: :x
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You can get them everywhere now, they are neons. eBay can be cheaper OR more expensive!
They come with just about any content from cute to lewd.
And doesn't that target ball look great when it splashes up on the screen as you open this thread :D
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Gosh Frank, that's amazing! I also recall reading of someone in the UK who had a lightbulb from the 1930's which finally went after over 60 years use. I thought that was incredible enough, but 100+ years... Wow! :shock:
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Anne — We had a very old Edison screw monster in the scullery (first of the outbuildings, and the largest room in the house) at 2 Rowley Avenue, Stafford. That was 30 years ago. The house had rather lethal DC wiring, badly converted to AC. I destroyed several pairs of side cutters before discovering fuses in both the neutral and live circuits and worked out what was happening! It also had gas lighting and a rainwater collection and filtration system!
Bernard C. 8)
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Bernard, it's hard to credit that so late in the 20th century that houses like that still existed - and possibly still do even into the 21st century. Having said that, it's not too many years ago that the gas lamps were removed from Woolworths in Kendal. They were certainly there long after I left school in the mid-70's, and there were gas lights along the station platforms at Oxenholme until about the same time. Easy to forget in our high-tech modern world isn't it? :roll:
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:idea: :idea: :idea: :idea: :idea: :idea: :idea: :idea: :idea: :idea:
amazing im lucky if our new fangled light bulbs last a month, :roll:
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Yes, they do not last very long now because people want to pay less. As a result all of the European light bulb manufacturers have closed down. Production is mostly in China now, due to lowere quality this had lead to a drop in overall efficiency. This of course is paralleled in the production of glassware and more recently art glass.
I am unaware of any research into the subject but would not be surprised if the 'real cost' in terms of energy use and replacement cost of the additional bulbs has increased as a result. That the perceived cost is lower is of course mere marketting and a consequence of the fact that 51 of the top 100 economies in the world are corporations and not countries.
There is no value in moaning about it as long as one supports it, but of course with the way that commerce moves today there are no options available for protest shopping.
If we take the example of target balls, is there a company anywhere that could produce a comparable item today within its local market community? The short answer is no and the only real alternative is to buy from the artists studios - yet I hear time and again that people would love to but cannot afford too. I would say that this is true because not enough people are willing to spend a little more. Thus the studio prices have to increase to meet the operational costs of the studio. In such a climate it is hardly surprising that companies like Caithness, which catered to a middle ground of quality collectibles and relied to a significant degree on department store sales, fail.
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Frank — I have unearthed a serious mouldmaker's error from the 1930s which I am certain was never discovered. I only noticed when looking for something else. I will enlighten everyone when I have some reasonable photographs to back up my anecdote.
Bernard, any progress?