Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Lustrousstone on August 05, 2005, 07:26:25 PM
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I have a large green uranium glass jar with a screw for a lid, but no lid. It has the registered number 723256 on the bottom. Can anyone identify who the number belongs to please. Looks like a jar for bath salts or similar. Thanks C
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Christine, it was registered by the International Bottle Company Ltd. on 13th August, 1926.
Glen
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Brian Blench in his talk on Scottish glass history at the Ysart conference mentioned that it was a common practise by both British potteries and glassworks to use a registered number assigned to them on ANY design, not necessarily the design registered which may or may not have been produced!!!!
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I did some research and found that the International Bottle Company specialised (still does) in bottles and containers for the perfumery and cosmetics industries. They also acted as agents for non-English companies. What I have is a large uranium glass jar in the green common in Czech uranium glass with laurel-wreath type decoration and panels suitable for labels. So it seems to make sense that this was a jar made for IBC to distribute wholesale. Unfortunately all their records were destroyed in the war. Christine
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Christine
We have seen here other examples of Czech glass being registered by British companies as agents so it is possible but I would be wary of jumping to conclusions too quickly.
I'm sure contributors would like to see a pic.
It may also help to confirm (or not ) your Czech theory.
Peter .....still in A'dam
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You may find comments that I made in this previous thread from late last year (regarding designs registered on behalf of Czech companies and also referring to the International Bottle Company) to be of relevance.
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,588.0.html
Glen
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Picture at last; only 6.5 years late!
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Brian Blench in his talk on Scottish glass history at the Ysart conference mentioned that it was a common practise by both British potteries and glassworks to use a registered number assigned to them on ANY design, not necessarily the design registered which may or may not have been produced!!!!
This 2005 remark, which can be considered authoritative from its source, should be included with any database on the subject of registration numbers,
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Brian Blench in his talk on Scottish glass history at the Ysart conference mentioned that it was a common practise by both British potteries and glassworks to use a registered number assigned to them on ANY design, not necessarily the design registered which may or may not have been produced!!!!
Frank — That quote of yours needs qualification. I've never seen a British registered number deliberately misused on any different design, not in the field of glass discussed on the GMB, nor in the bottle collecting field. Same applies to the pre–1884 registration lozenges.
However, in a very limited way, Brian Blench was correct. If you look at the very early registrations by the big Manchester glassworks, you will see a variety of shapes in the same pattern registered separately. They were clearly unsure of how far the new design registration system would protect a suite of glass, all made in the same pattern. You will see that it did not take too long to resolve. Registering every shape in a pattern, possibly as many as thirty or forty shapes, ranging from candlesticks to epergnes and lampshades, would have swamped everyone with paperwork, both the glassworks and the design registry, so within a short time it became established that a single registration would protect a full suite.
I've no experience of Class 4 registrations — pottery and china — but I would be very surprised if the history was significantly different.
Note that I'm not including mouldmaking and other errors, of which there are a fair number. I think I've seen examples of just about every error possible in both registration lozenges and registered numbers, including a wonderful hybrid of 1884 where the mouldmaker clearly didn't know what he was supposed to do, so he put the registered number in a lozenge just to be safe! One of the best is one of the early Manchester comports, where two different designs had plungers marked with different lozenges that were interchangeable, so you get the wrong lozenge on a few examples. It amazes me that I've not yet found anyone collecting these errors. Wouldn't it be a fabulous collection! ;D
In respect of designs which may or may not have been produced, he may have been thinking of something along the lines of Sowerby's patent No. 2433 of 15 September 1871 (see Hajdamach I), which I suspect was an over-elaborate spoof, deliberately designed to confuse competitors in the UK, Europe, and the USA, as the only known examples of this patent are in a far simpler design.
Bernard C. 8)
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You could call the collection E&OE — Errors and Omissions Excepted (Accepted) ;D
... and I think I may have too many negatives in my second sentence above — but you can see what I'm getting at.
Bernard C. :angel:
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Bernard there is indeed a wide variation on how the Manchester glassworks used the registration system. For some they register the shape, others the pattern, others are for distinctive one off pieces.
With tableware you get three main variations
- one piece registered, but actually a whole range produced
- several pieces registered of the same design spread out over multiple registrations, for example, the Molineaux Webb greek key designs
- many pieces registered under the same number. Molineaux Webb registration 209414, from 1893, shows 12 pieces on a single sheet, and registration 251393, from 1895, shows 25 pieces on the same sheet.