Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Bernard C on March 11, 2008, 06:42:55 AM
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Help please, preferably internationally.
For as long as I can remember I have used the terms Tie Numbers and Tie Letters to describe the small engraved marks applied to the stopper and rim of the decanter to ensure that the two stay together after grinding in.
While the term is quite plausible and easily understood, as the marks tie that stopper to that particular decanter, I cannot find my source, and am concerned that I could be propagating an incorrect term. In particular the term is not in Haanstra, Ivo, Glass fact file a–z, Miller's, 2001, where I would expect to find it.
What do you call these engraved marks? ... and do you have a source for this? Quite obviously there may be more than one term, possibly country-, region-, town-, or even glassworks-specific.
Bernard C. 8)
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Bernard,
Whilst I quite like the term you are using for the numbers used on stoppers and decanters, I cannot say that I've ever heard of its use prior to this thread and your use of it in another, where you describe the UK versus continental digits.
Nigel
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Neither have I in the US. I thought it must be a UK thing when I saw you use it. Could it be a term you picked up somewhere that was used by a particular glassmaker?
And thanks for the description of the different numerals! Very enlightening.
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it is absent from the a-z book because there I have found no reference to it in literature & never heard the term before.
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Well Bernard, as no one has come up with an alternative or ratification - yet the term has not been disapproved... let us vote for adopting it. We have enough writers here to start propagating the term! It might be worth checking first with Decanterman, Andy, to see if he came across this or another term before.
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I Heard or read somewere that stoppering was a specific job, the stopperer or stopper man would spend most of his day grinding in polishing and numbering each stopper to its decanter.Not the most exciting job.
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Hello,
There is no reference to the term in The Decanter, by McConnell that I could find.
As for the numbering in the first place there is no proof as to how it came about. Yes , you are quite right about stoppers being made at a seperate place to the maker of the bottle and then being ground and polished to fit, John. However, to date there is no proof about how the practice of numbering came about.
Whilst logically one would expect the decanter base and the stopper to be numbered to match as a part of the fitting process, originally this did not take place.
There are also theories that it began when butlers wanted to be sure that the correct stopper matched its base, as well as other theories. In the twentieth century it most surely became part of the manufacturing process, however at what prior point this became common practice is debatable.
Maybe its my conservative nature, but I hesitate to introduce a new term - perhaps its a just case of me thinking "We are not worthy", now all I've got to do is remember where I referenced that quote from. Life of Brian, maybe?
Nigel
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Seems very logical. Numbering systems are generally named ...as in Dewey Decimal.....so perhaps this should be known as the Cavalot Code?
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I just ran across a term for "tie number" in the glossary of Wilson's American Glass 1760-1930: match mark.
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I like "Match Mark" as it covers numbers, letters and symbols too. Also it is less ambiguous than "Tie".
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I like "Match Mark" as it covers numbers, letters and symbols too. ...
I don't like any new term, so let's not introduce one. If match mark was used in the USA, then let's leave it that way, and not globalise it. Grateful thanks, Kristi, for looking it up. I've been all through my books, and, like everyone else, can't find an expression for these marks. I can't recall the source of my tie number, so, while I am sure that I didn't invent it, my interests are too diverse for me to be certain that it came from a glass context, so I would prefer to kill this expression, stone dead.
We can easily, succinctly, and unambiguously use a term like engraved stopper number, without inventing something new that is bound to cause confusion. Also, as I understand it, such invention would be beyond the remit of this message board, see BOARD POLICY (http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,6521.0.html).
At times like this, I am mindful of a wonderful piece by the late William Heacock when discussing the Northwood (and Walsh) pattern Opaline Brocade (see the front cover of Eric's book). He was obviously struggling with the original name, as we still do, as he wasn't sure whether the pattern was more properly just Brocade, with Opaline as the colour scheme, or whether it was always like that with Opaline Brocade indivisible. He then invented a new name for it Spanish Lace. He had a tough enough time discussing patterns with two names, but three was just too much, and he lost it completely.
Bernard C. 8)
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I didn't look it up, I stumbled on it.
I don't know why just because a term is new to you, you think it's not worth using and recently invented. Likewise, just because it's in an American book doesn't make it necessarily exclusively American. The glossary of the publication I found it in is pretty conservative, not given to lots of far-out nomenclature. It's a small part of a two-volume set published in 1994, a well-researched treatment of the extensive American glass collection of the Toledo Museum of Art, which oversaw the project.
Match mark is more generally used in other trades as well to denote parts that go together. At least it is in America. Do you also reject the terms Amberina and Burmese because they were coined in the US? Golly.
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I too thought if the name of the book had been Wilson's British Glass 1760-1930 it would have been more readily accepted by Bernard.
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Language continually evolves and despite resistance in UK, American terms and spelling are increasingly common amongst the International English community. Very little software comes with UK English as an option these days, particularly kids sites. American spelling does eliminate some of the tongue twisting silent letters that do nothing but complicate learning the language. Although I prefer UK English by nature I also think it has had its day and should be unified into a single language - nothing to do with nationalism, just improving communication. Match number makes so much sense.
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On the subject of UK and US English there are many instances where the US spelling or meaning is actually one that is now obsolete in the UK (Bill Bryson has much to say on the matter), so round we go again...
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Yes indeed, language continually evolves, especially in the glass world (at least in the US). Unfortunately, ebay seems to have had an impact here on some words - misuse becomes rampant, spreading through the US ebay "community." "Bristol" is a good example, IMO.
I think I should clarify what I said earlier. I don't necessarily think everybody should start using the term "match mark." If it's so obscure in the US and UK that it would require an explanation whenever it's used, I don't think it's of much value. My point was that the fact that I found a term none of us had heard of doesn't necessarily mean it's new or restricted to America (though the latter may well be true). I think it's more likely that it's an old term from the glass industry. It seems to me there was a quite diverse terminology used by glass companies of the past that we are unfamiliar with, partly because the language has become more standardized. "Match mark" (or its synonyms) is also not the kind of term that is likely to appear in many glass books since it's not really a feature of the glassmaking or decorating process, but instead a logistical aspect. I haven't scoured the literature for a term for it, as Bernard has, but I can't remember ever reading about it in a book. Maybe that says more about the breadth of my reading, though!
One very good reason to not use the term is that it also means a bit of glass that has seeped between parts of a mold, so it could get confusing. I knew this when I wrote my other post, but chose to ignore it (bad Kristi!).
Incidentally, while Googling the term, I came across a quite extensive glass glossary:
http://www.museumoflondonarchaeology.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/FCBB7609-4C5A-48A1-9082-F42EBA062F4B/0/post92molglass_glos.pdf
Unfortunately, it's not alphabetized. (Does anyone know what a "reputed quart" is? The term is used in this glossary when discussing volumes of vessels.)
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I would say that since the appearance of the internet a vast amount of misused and abused terms and other glass myths have been debunked- including the word "Bristol". The number of seriously researched books which have been published in the last ten years is unprecedented. That there is a whole community out there who use their own inadequate terminology to sell things on ebay does not mean it has become common usage or acceptable. Looking through the listings you will soon see that there are but few sellers who get it right, and some who get it so blatantly wrong that you just want to switch off your computer stante pede.
I don't get the discussion about the "match mark" as this is a descriptive term and not glass specific; you may use whatever term you find fit to describe the corresponding marks. Depending on whom you write it for you might want to describe it a little further. That's all there is to it.
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I would say that since the appearance of the internet a vast amount of misused and abused terms and other glass myths have been debunked- including the word "Bristol". The number of seriously researched books which have been published in the last ten years is unprecedented. Learning from those books requires people to read them! That there is a whole community out there who use their own inadequate terminology to sell things on ebay does not mean it has become common usage or acceptable. Not acceptable, no. However, ebay in the US is a HUGE phenomenon, and unfortunately influential. Many glass collectors actually refer to it hoping for good information! Looking through the listings you will soon see that there are but few sellers who get it right, and some who get it so blatantly wrong that you just want to switch off your computer stante pede. Amen to that, brother! (Hmmm, is that an American expression?)
Example of ebay's influence: I raised the "Bristol" issue in another forum recently, and here's one of the replies from someone I like and respect (though don't always agree with): "I did a quick check on Ebay for a Bristol vase and found items similar to what I had posted, so if that is a term accepted by a large number of the collecting community over here then that is what I'll call it over here."