Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: antiques-in-nj on November 26, 2009, 04:02:02 PM
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I want to throw out a topic that is a bit of a mystery to me. I bought a lavender shaker that normally is only produced in milk glass.
\I was told by another collector that there is a process of altering the color of milk glass to a lavender color much like the sun purpled clear
glass we all know. I have never heard of that with milk glass and most people dont believe that is possible.
Any thoughts or comments?
Scott
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Here is a picture of the shaker in question.
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I don't believe it for a second. The colour shift in UV treated glass (desert glass, sun exposed glass) stems from Manganese, a decolouring agent used in clear batch. Milk glass does not need that - it has Titaniumdioxide as an opacifier and whitener. No way you could alter the reflective properties like you could tweak the absorption spectrum.
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Thanks for your input I tend to agree with you. The person who I always discussed this with just would not back down from his argument and I respect him for his beliefs but I never really agreed with him.
Scott
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Ivo is right on target. We will be making an opaque Lavender soon at Fenton Art Glass, and it is a color we first made in the mid-970s.
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Thanks, I know every once in a while a lavender example of an item in opaque glass of any color shows up.
In my opinion they show up rarely but they do show up and Im always drawn to rarely known colors of glass.
Scott
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Hi Scott,
I accidentally jumped onto this thread just by doing a google search with "lavendar milkglass". I can attest that beyond a shadow of a doubt that authentic lavendar (or medium-purple) milkglass was occasionally made at least as early as the 1880s. Several years ago there was a project in the downtown Louisville, KY area in which excavation was done, alot of digging and moving of earth in preparation for a new waterfront park project. During this excavation the blulldozers uncovered lots of trash....construction debris, broken bricks, broken bottles, lots of glassware and pottery shards, etc, and among the odds and ends I saved a small number of shards of EAPG of various colors (my "study collection") . All dated generally from the 1880s perhaps into the early 1890s. Evidently the area once served as a casual dumping ground, at least for a period of time. Among the collection of shards is a broken base portion of lavendar milkglass, which I guess belonged to a bottle, cruet, jar, vase or shaker of some sort. The base is round, has a pontil mark and is about 2 and 3/4ths inches in diameter. The color is almost identical to the picture you attached to your message. I am positive it is from the 1880s as there were various shards from typical colored 1880s American Pattern Glass like Thousand Eye, Flower and Panel, Daisy & Button, Wooden Pail, Three Panel, Queen, Barred Forget-me-Not and others, among the assemblage. And of course this would have had nothing to do with later alteration by sunlight or any chemical / irradiation process......it had been buried for over a century. I have seldom, or never, seen this exact color in any item while browsing the antique malls, so I have been intrigued by it as well. David_W
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Thanks so much for the input David! I find this color most interesting and certainly hard to come by. I only have one other piece in this color in a shaker and thats an Acorn salt shaker.
Ive seen a Challinor Tree of life syrup, sure wish I had that one! Better yet for what I collect it sure would be great to find other shakers in this color.
Thanks again!
Scott
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Hi Scott,
I am not that conversant on shakers, and in fact have just recently been getting seriously interested in learning more about EAPG in general.. .....I've been doing alot of reading lately. My main interest seems to be focusing on 1880s era pattern glass children's mugs, and spooners.
I understand that Atterbury & Company made a number of "off-the-wall" opaque and translucent colors, and I was wondering if they might have produced some glass in this lavendar milk glass color. Any thoughts / ideas?
So Challinor & Taylor can definitely be attributed as a maker of this color?
Take care,
David
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I was told by another collector that there is a process of altering the color of milk glass to a lavender color much like the sun purpled clear
glass we all know. I have never heard of that with milk glass and most people dont believe that is possible.
Any thoughts or comments?
Scott
Scott and Ivo
Have a look at the second window on this web page:
http://earofthewind.com/artists_portfolio (http://earofthewind.com/artists_portfolio)
He says it is sun purpled milk glass and he lives in the desert so apparently it is possible to change the colour with uv rays.
Sid
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I love all the odd colored pieces too. That is why I love Challinor pieces. They made all sorts of slag pieces, and odd colors, even some carnival glass, (yes carnival glass) pieces turned up which are extremely rare but that a whole other subject. I also love chocolate glass, it can come in all sorts of variations from a tan color to very dark brown with the edges that have a redish look to them called red agate.
As far as the shaker pictured, the pattern name is Crocus with no maker attribution.
One of my favorite rare colors from Challinor is butterscotch!
I collect shakers, mustards, and toothpicks because they are small so I can collect so much more :)
Scott
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Hi Sid,
Wow, how interesting! Thats the first reference Ive seen stating this.
Thanks for posting it!
Scott
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Question....if the second window is under "About" then I'm not seeing Milk Glass specified. All I see is a pile of glass where he talks about "sun purpled" & the glass may be dirty or sandy because its sort of opaque looking...not unusual since the location of where he lives. I do see what may be a hunk of milk glass on a rock, but it desn't appear to be purple. What am I missing? Ken
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artistic freedom is all right of course - but is still makes no technical sense.
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Question....if the second window is under "About" then I'm not seeing Milk Glass specified. All I see is a pile of glass where he talks about "sun purpled" & the glass may be dirty or sandy because its sort of opaque looking...not unusual since the location of where he lives. I do see what may be a hunk of milk glass on a rock, but it desn't appear to be purple. What am I missing? Ken
Ken
If you scroll down on the page I linked to which contains examples of his work, the second leaded glass window is entitled "Sun purple milk glass 38" by 20" 2008".
Sid
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Hello:
I was fortunate enough to pick up the papers of Harry A. Schnelbach few years ago. He was in management positions at various North American glass factories from the 1890s until the late 1920s with heavy involvement with glass formulation. For example, he helped develop MacBeth Evans' Alba glass, a semi opaque glass for lighting, and later similar opaque/translucent glasses at Jefferson Glass. Unfortunately for him, he was successfully sued by MacBeth Evans for trade secret infringement of their Alba glass. His papers included dozens of batch books and I had a look through them today. It is interesting to note how many of his opal or opaque glass recipes included manganese. I don't know what the purpose was but it does appear that manganese was used for opaque white glass. That would help explain why some milk glass might sun purple.
Sid
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Hi all,
That website is fascinating.
I am guessing (but have not contacted anyone at the site) that this person has access to some great dumping areas from the 1880- 1940 period... I see lots of medicinal bottles from the very early 1900s. Also pieces of pattern glass.......daisy and button and others. And/or maybe the artist has had the opportunity to buy damaged glassware of various colors and patterns, and used such items to create shards? Very interesting.
Btw, looking closely at the "purple milkglass" window, I see several white (and purple) milkglass inserts for canning jars, the type used inside zinc lids for the typical "BALL" mason style canning jars..... They are the perfectly round pieces of glass. Most of those types of inserts were made of opaque or translucent white milkglass (and I have seen an occasional example with an opalescent greenish or bluish tint) ; they were produced in massive numbers by Hazel-Atlas and other companies. Most of them probably date from the 1880 to 1940 period (H-A after 1902).
Another thought.....all glass contains cullet (broken, recycled glass) and I am sure in many cases a glass factory could not always have been sure what ingredients were in a particular batch of cullet that they were adding the molten glass mixture. Does anyone have an idea what colors of glass cullet was "allowable" in making new white milkglass? Perhaps this would be why some manganese was included in the recipe......not only could there be trace amounts of manganese from the cullet itself, but more could have been added to the batch to counteract any unwanted colors in cullet.
Of course, all of this still doesn't cancel out the fact that some small quantities of as-made lavender / purple milkglass date from the Victorian age, and more recently as well.
David
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... all glass contains cullet (broken, recycled glass) ...
:huh:
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Hi KevH,
Hmmm..... OK, using the word "all" was incorrect / extreme.... Please allow me to correct that to "most". I am sure much "high end" handmade glassware produced in relatively small batches, using a highly specialized color recipe, may not have included any cullet. But as far as commercially mass-produced utilitarian container glass (such as seen in the piles of clear-turned-amethyst bottle shards shown in the pic at the referenced site on artistic glass windows), some percentage of cullet would have been standard practice.
Lower-quality glass, including "green glass" made for common bottles and telephone insulators, almost always contained a considerable percentage of cullet.
Modern glass container plants apparently use tremendous quantities of cullet ..... as mentioned here:
http://www.gpi.org/media/facts-faq/
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/146068/cullet
But I digress from the topic of lavendar milkglass..........sorry!
Take care,
David