Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: Baked_Beans on September 13, 2010, 02:09:34 PM
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I'm just wondering if it is possible to date this IOW paperweight. I'm not sure when red Azurene was first introduced and if it is still being produced (I guess it is). I do know that black was the first Azurene colour developed by Michael Harris, but that is really the limit of my knowledge. Approx. 8cm in height. Ta, Mike.
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According to Mark Hill's book that label was used between 1978 and 1990. Can't help other than that, sorry. Jackie
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whoops - should have read further. Book says under Azurene p 88 " a much rarer and more opaque red was produced for two years only in 1986 and 1987 and is extremely scarce. " There is a photo of a red azurene vase on p 91 but it looks a more orangey colour than your paperweight.
hopefully someone more expert will also reply!
JAK
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Ohh , thanks ever so much Jak for the info.. ...It's another book I need to get hold of ! The colour of the red in the photos is very true to life. It's taken in natural light. Definately opaque ! I'm getting a bit excited now :rah: ! If it is the same colour red then I would never have guessed it would be possible to date it within a couple of years ! I hope it can be confirmed :X: . Thanks again, Mike.
p.s. I've added a shot with flash to try and make it more orange-looking !!
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:rah:
Yup, definitely RED Azurene. (I've got a big cylinder). Date as above, produced for 2 years only, not much of it about.
It's a very peculiar shade, quite orange and verging on pink.
Completely different to their Pink, which is fairly much cranberry.
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Golly ! Thanks Sue !
As you say it really is a unique kind of red with definate pink & orange hues . I'm :chky: !!
How odd that the colour was only produced for such a short time because it's really lovely ! What a result ! :band:
I'm so greatful to you both, Mike.
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The silver and gold foil efects on your weight are rather good - I strongly suspect that a gentle rub with a bit of silver polish would get shot of the black marks on it - I think it's just silver on the surface tarnishing. It's not cased.
You don't want to go polishing the metal off though!
An alternative is to rub the marks with the ball of your thumb. Just the acid content of your skin is enough to clean silver.
(That can be a useful tip when carboooting or fleamarketting - if you see what looks like tarnished black metal, give it a wee bit of a rub with your thumb to see if it's silver or silver plated. If there's silver there, it should start to shine. Then you can deal with the problem of finding hallmarks or the finding all the bits where the plate has worn off - though your thumb should help on that score.
(ps. The red colour of Isle of Wight Studio Glass is definitely opaque.)
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Ta Sue,
The silver leaf has definately lost its' shine and is almost grey in colour with streaks of even darker slate colour. Where the silver crosses the gold it looks quite grubby.I was a bit concerned about it and thought it might be dirt but it is the silver leaf tarnishing , now you mention it . I will try the thumb technique but I'm very reluctant to cause any ware.
It's quite charming with the aged look though ! Thanks for the tip . Mike.
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From the past Science teaching days you can detarnish silver (without eating into the silver itself with either (a) a strong ammonia solution - the silver sulphide dissolves, OR (b) the chemical used to "fix" black & white photos called commonly 'hypo' which does the same.
They of course will not polish the silver nor will they eat the silver away - only the sulphide will be dissolved.
Ross
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Thanks Ross,
I will try the 'hypo' and see what happens ! I'm sure it will work, if so I will post yet another photo of the result !
The thumb technique produced limited results but it did prove that is it tarnished....I started to look like Gollum whilst muttering 'my presious' , so I stopped !
Abrasive silver cleaners would be too harsh I feel, but there are also non-abrasive ones . I was going to try a wet-wipe metal cleaner (used for stainless cooker hoods) and available in all good supermarkets.
It's a great idea and I will be off to the camera shop ! Cheers Mike.
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I just wanted to give an update on the cleaning of this weight. I managed to get hold of a one litre bottle of Rapid Fixer or 'Hypo' from a traditional photograhpic shop in Bristol. It's not that easy to get hold of, these days , as many high street photographic shops do not stock 'chemistry' as it is known in the trade. The Hypo is made by Fotospeed and is called 'Fotospeed FX20 Rapid Fixer' . It cost me just under £10 for a 1 litre bottle (not cheap !). It used to be available in much smaller bottles(pre-digital age) but not any more. see www.fotospeed.com.
The fixer is in concentrated form and for developing photos it recommends a 1 to 4 dilution with water. I used it undiluted/neat after experimenting with it on a tarnished silver bangle . It worked very well on the bangle dipping a kitchen paper towl into the hypo. But it needed a lot of rubbing and a normal abrasive silver cleaner would be better for solid silver objects.
So I then went on to the paperweight and it worked very well , removing much of the surface tarnish . The result was that much of the grubby look has gone and it's possible to see much more of the surface iridescence. Well worth doing. The hypo does smell a bit but after 24 hours the smell goes ! This is not the case if it soaks in to wood or carpets and can last for a very,very long time !
I've added a photo of the paperweight and it doesn't look different at all !! But I can assure you that it has really improved it looking close up.
Next to the paperweight is a silver leaf decorated vase (origin unknown) . This has also been cleaned with hypo and the result was really significant ...far more shinny !
Pesonally I would really recommend this as a cleaner for silver leaf on glass or if you have a piece of silver-mounted glass and you need to clean the silver which surrounds it ! :thup: Thanks again Ross !
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Glad you are happy with the result. If you reckon hypo smells don't try it with 880 ammonia - it really clears tthe sinuses and in a closed space can be a problem. By the way I realised the last time I taught Science was 1985 - the memory is not fading as fast as I thought it might be!! ;D
Ross
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I remember sniffing a bottle of ammonia in a chemistry lesson in my school days and this was the result ! ----> :cry:
I think it is difficult getting hold of concentrated ammonia over here in the UK . A 9.5% solution is about it I think . Cheers, Mike.
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I find a tiny and gentle wipe with proprietary liquid silver polish on a bit of soft tissue does the job very well.
:wsh:
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They of course will not polish the silver nor will they eat the silver away - only the sulphide will be dissolved.
Erm detarnishing silver will eat the silver away in the sense that the top layer of silver has already been converted to silver sulphide, which is then dissolved by the hypo
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Absolutely correct, Christine.
There is no way of cleaning tarnish from silver without affecting the quantity of metal - the tarnish is what's eating it up.
So, physical chemistry folk, is it best to clean it early? or wait until it's completely black?
It there any sort of rate of tarnish production which is affected by the presence or absence of tarnish already there?
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The only ways I could imagine to stop tarnish are (a) coat it with a clear 'varnish' - akin to what is done to most cheap silver anyway or (b) use a scavenger metal that will tarnish in preference to the silver - I have no idea how you could do that but theoretically it will work.
Ross
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For the scientifically minded http://www.vam.ac.uk/res_cons/conservation/journal/issue18/tarnishing_silver/index.html
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but for the more practically minded - just don't fart anywhere near your silver..... :wsh:
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Correct me if I'm wrong here but I think that liquid silver polishes have abrasives included in the mix.
With such a fine layer of silver leaf covering the paperweight any abrasive would wear the silver away in addition to the chemical action of tarnishing (which also wears the silver away).
So the advantage of using hypo is that you don't have a double action of wear...just a single one the tarnishing. Also there is a very fine iridesence of different shades of blue and mauves to the surface of the weight. Surely an abrasive cleaner would have an effect on this. I think hypo is the gentle way to clean this type of weight without disturbing any other qualities of the fine finish . Anyway that's my (Ross's really) theory and I'm sticking with it....I have to 'cus I have a whole litre of the stuff ! ;)
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:clap:
Fine! :thup:
The iridescenty bits, however, appeared as the silver was being heated with the glass - it's a reaction between the glass and the silver. It shouldn't polish off too easily!
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but for the more practically minded - just don't fart anywhere near your silver..... :wsh:
Just because my name is Baked_Beans there is no need to get personal here >:( !! Perhaps I will get through the litre of hypo quicker than I thought :24:
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Ooops messed up the quote bit ! Sorry .
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:24: :24: :24:
Seriously though, this is a very interesting and informative thread, with implications for all glass which has silver surface effects! (I have an Adam Aaronson vase with a silver leaf band round the middle and a Jonathan Harris silver re-heat cameo vase, both of which need a bit of a polish to restore the appearance of the silver.) I think it would be useful if this thread could be archived in some way so that the information remains available for seekers of advice on how to clean silvered glass surfaces!
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I (or another Moderator) will split out the info on silver cleaning and then shift it to:
a) the general Glass forum for possible additional input
b) the Glass Archives forum
First split to be done in the next day or two.
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There's a discussion about this on the IoWSG forum.
Mostly found a range of stuff called "Mr. Town Talk" on ebay - it has an anti-tarnish feature, which seems to have lasted about 6 months.
http://www.isleofwightstudioglass.co.uk/SMF/index.php?topic=442.0
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Thanks very much for that link, Sue :kissy:
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Thanks very much for the link, too, Sue !
I really like your cylinder vases. It seems that oxidization of the silver is almost an inherent feature with Azurene. Even after the hypo treatment on this paperweight it still looks greyish silver.
So I don't know if it was like that when it was made or not . Certainly without a coating of an anti-tarnish spray as in Mr Town Talk the result of cleaning would be just very short-lived . The paperweight is already reverting back to it's pre-cleaned look !
I've really learnt so much from one paperweight and will look out for IOW Azurene now that I know more about it !
Thanks again Sue you have been a real sport and a huge help !
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;D
I think the oxidation is inherent only in the earlier pieces, while the technique was still being perfected.
No harm in repeating here the snippet of info I have permission to tell folk about, regarding this foiling at Isle of Wight Studio Glass.
Michael Harris invented a special vacuum marver for putting the foil onto the glass.
The surface of the marver has little holes in it, a gentle vacuum is created by passing air under it. The very delicate sheets of precious metal foil are laid carefully on it and the mild vacuum holds them flat, while the gather of glass is rolled over to pick it up.
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Mike, the reason why the cleaned silver is somewhat dull is obvious, when you realise that the cleaning process is somewhat akin to etching selectively. The depth of the tarnish will vary continuously and the surface will in effect be etched once the tarnish is removed. Protection would need to be applied as soon as the cleaning is completed.
Ross
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Thanks Ross,
The hypo worked on the silver bangle in such a way that once the tarnish was removed the silver was as shiny as it was before the tarnishing had turned it grey/black. There is no dulling effect (as in acid etching) due to the hypo . The same with the vase I cleaned which is next to the paperweight in the above photo. Very bright and shiny silver. It's only the paperweight that remained silvery grey but definately brighter & cleaner looking.
The problem for me is that I don't know how the paperweight looked when it was first made. Was the silver very silvery or was it silvery grey ? Still I just wanted to point out that the hypo doesn't dull the silver just in case of any confusion .....without wishing to bore ! :sleep: ;)
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I can't answer you, sorry!
Here's a pic of my best and favourite bit of Azurene.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b227/chopin-liszt/Azfish2.jpg
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Well , how stunning is that !! It's just superb. It looks like the Azurene has been cased....no cleaning needed !
I just thought I would post a pic of the silver leaf vase taken less than a week after cleaning. It looks worse than it did before I cleaned it ! There is only silver decorating this vase so all that is brown should be silver.
Perhaps the vase was coated in an anti-tarnish spray before I cleaned it and the hypo removed the coating.
It just shows how important it is to coat after cleaning with an anti-tarnish spray ! :usd:
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:spls:
Oh dear. It's a lovely piece - and it's about time you put it in a thread on it's own for id. :thup:
My normal (goddard's) silver polish has an anti-tarnish feature. I've checked out my red cylinder - not looked at it for ages - it's just like your weight was - grey and a few black bits.
I really think fussing about what it looked like exactly when it was first made is irrelevant. They'll all do the tarnishing thing if the silver is exposed.
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Thanks Sue , It's been fun experimenting though 8). The vase is a bit wonky around the rim , it looks like an experiment thats why I ' let rip ' with the hypo on it !