Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: heartofsklo on July 16, 2011, 02:13:32 PM
-
Measures 28/29cm tall. The base has a central pontil mark plus it has four impressed short lines or pressure marks equally set around the pontil area.
Looks like it should be Chribska to me but arent they all flat bottomed not having a pontil scar?, but wadda I know :-\
-
Not sure who made it, but I don't think it's Chribska/Czech. Kinda has that modern Chinese/Polish look to me, could be wrong though.
-
Thanks Wayne. To be honest, there does not seem to be any wear/scratches to the base rim, its very "new" looking. Although, this is not always a true guarantee regarding age. I will plump for modern art glass at this stage.
-
To follow up -
Today I found another of these vases, much larger but exactly the same. This one is a massive 42cm tall.
The source was elderly and said that they had owned it for many, many years. They seemed to think that they had almost always owned.
Anyone else have any clues or info to chip in on this?
-
It looks North American to me. The glass reminds me of some of the things made in the southwest US and Mexico, as well as in West Virginia. The vase is so familiar to me, but I can't place it.
-
Here are a couple of images of the latest acquisition.
-
The size, unbalanced look and opal glass always make me think Chinese.
To quote Gregory House "Everybody lies"
-
I often see remarks stating "Possibly (maybe, could be, looks like etc ) Chinese" but is there any info about all of this alleged Chinese glass? (as in a dedicated website or internet source for attributing all of the accused pieces ;- as I cannot find anything that supports the claims so far).Or did the phrase mainly start as a throw away comment for modern glass of no real or lesser quality?
-
A quick search on the global trade site Alibaba is probably your best bet to get a feel for "cheap n cheerful" modern glass.
1600 results for "Murano Glass Vase", most from China:
http://www.alibaba.com/products/murano_glass_vase.html
Of course these are all brand new, and there is plenty of stuff around from the 70's or earlier that was made in China, Japan etc.
-
Yes, I do get that there are modern glass items posing as "Murano" etc but I do not get, once again,
""and there is plenty of stuff around from the 70's or earlier that was made in China, Japan etc.""
Where are they to be found as a resource for everyone to be so sure? or is it just an assumption that China/Japan made some of these hither to refefred to as "Chinese" or "Japanese" made pieces?
Is there not even a manufacturers list anywhere for such pieces of "probably from" China or Japan? How can anyone dig deeper without any real resources other than here say which so far is all I have come across so far.
-
I believe someone discussed the 'hundreds' of glassmakers in China, on another thread. I will try and find it for you, which may give you some idea as to why there is not a 'list' of glassmakers in China. In addition to which many of those makers names were/are not known as they produce supply for the middle man, so the source of the glass is often hidden.
Example thread here with the Alibaba link. If you trawl through the alibaba site you may recognise many of the characteristics of some of the glass id'd as possibly Chinese.
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,44816.msg249804.html#msg249804
In addition to which, it is my impression from reading on here, that Chinese glass pieces are produced in fairly large quantities so it stands to reason that we may see proportionately more pieces attributed as Chinese made I guess. In the link I give below,just on the first page the minimum order for one of the vases is 10,000 pieces!
If it hasn't been done already perhaps it might be an idea to start a 'sticky' thread, with a list of identified Chinese glassmakers? I know that Snowflake and Dalian are talked about quite a bit,but there are many others. This might be helpful in the future?
I have gone to the glass link for vases on Alibaba and hopefully this should take you straight there - just looking at the sheer volume (over 9,000 varieties of vase available) and the variety of producers will explain why it is so difficult to catalogue Chinese glass production
http://www.alibaba.com/catalogs/--1713------------1222-389
m
-
Thanks flying free.
All I was curious about was why/how people are so sure regarding the alleged Chinese/Japanese pieces without very much ready information.
I personally think that these two vases have an age of approx 40 years or more. This leaves me wondering how they would fit in with the Chinese/Japanese glass imports history should they turn out to be of that manufacture. The vase are not new imports.
-
The Chinese and Japanese have long histories of glass making but the problem now is the vast quantities the Chinese produce and the low costs they sell it for
I spend a lot of time looking round "antique" centres, where many examples of mass produced modern glass are slipped amongst the older stuff. Stuff bought at the local wholesaler. And a lot of it has the features I described (when I said size I meant large size)
The size, unbalanced look and opal glass always make me think Chinese.
Your vases may not be Chinese. Were your elderly sources dealers (however small time) or just having a clear out? You can usually tell from their stock. I take everything non-specialist dealers tell me with a large pinch of salt.
-
I think part of the problem is that there is no real interest in collecting far eastern glass at the moment. If someone picks up a vase at a fair or wherever, and sees a label on the bottom saying "made in China", then they are probably more likely to put it back down than add it to their collection. Then there is the language barrier. I've often used Google Translate to do searches in Swedish etc when researching, but trying to search in Chinese or Japanese has never really lead anywhere for me.
Having said that, there is of course the China + Taiwan section of this forum here (http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/board,26.0.html), and I've delved a little bit into Japanese glass here (http://www.20thcenturyglass.com/glass_encyclopedia/japanese_glass/japaneseglass_home.htm), but it's only the tip of the iceberg.
All I was curious about was why/how people are so sure regarding the alleged Chinese/Japanese pieces without very much ready information.
A lot of it is speculation, like M says, you just get a feel for some of the characteristics, such as base and rim finishes, how the glass is cased etc, which might leads us to say "probably" Chinese. I don't think anyone is "so sure" though, without evidence of labelled pieces.
-
Take a look in discount shops regularly to build up a picture, you will see shelves of the current production most with made in China labels. I go into TK Maxx about once a month just to see what they are currently flooding the market with.
Much of it is large and heavy, execution is often poor, design is usually generic as much of it is borrowed from elsewhere.
John
-
So have we decided the vase in this post is Chinese and not something like Mexican?
-
Mexican glass would be less likely in the UK I think
-
The thing that makes me wonder if it is NA is the blue tint in the glass, as well as the slag-like appearance of the decor. Most Chinese glass I see along this line has clear glass. I looked for vases like this last night and found two others, but they were not identified, either. This is a very common vase here in the US. I've seen many like it. Perhaps it is Chinese, but I'm not ready to call it that without a label. In these days of international trade, I wouldn't be surprised to see a NA vase show up anywhere in the world. As common as this vase is, I'm sure we'll find one with a label someday.
-
I looked at eBay and found a similar vase -- not the same, but in a similar spirit. It has the made in Mexico label on it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140778045007
-
It's certainly very similar
-
I found a couple of Mexican glass vases with blue decor. One had a label. They were like the OP's vase except the rims and color. Same pontil scar. So I would say the vase in this thread is probably Mexican. If not, it is a very good copy of thier style.
-
That sounds like a good match Anita and I think the vase looks very similar. I'm curious about whether this would be recycled glass or not?
It has raised questions for me also about Spanish modern production glass and recycled glass. I've always wondered if there was a tie up between Mexican producers and Spanish producers somewhere along the line as to my eye there are similarities in the glass.
m
-
m, Mexican glass is not as good as most European glass. I don't know what causes the blue tint in much of it. We would have to get a glass chemist to tell us about the differences in sand and maybe soda. From what I've read, their glass is not heated to the extent that European glass is. The Cristales de Chihuahua factory in Juarez is quite crude when compared to other countries. But I think the glass they turn out is delightful. Much of it, such as the cased slag elephants and other animals, are often sold online as Murano glass. And people pay good money for these animals! If only they knew what they were buying. :)
But actually the prices they are usually paying are fine for Mexican. They would just be too low for Murano.
-
That's interesting Anita - I wonder in the future if some of those pieces will become 'collectable' like the earlier 1930's Chinese paperweights are starting to seem to be.
m
-
Looking on the net at images for mexican glass vase, I found this http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/115493131/Mexican_hand_blown_art_glass_vases.html
It is Mexican recycled glass.
-
I'm confused. The link you gave goes to a vase with a marbled spotty appearance, for me. Were you saying you'd found a vase on line the same as your vase, that said it was recycled? or were you giving me a link to recycled Mexican glass for interest? :)
m
-
I am probably diverting this topic slightly - but I think the link here to this piece
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/513717074/Wedding_Decor_Antique_Vases_Glass_Mexican.html
demonstrates many of the points being made in this thread -
- about the difficulty of identifying Chinese glass
- how derivative some new glass can be
- the larger quantities these pieces can be churned out in
So....this vase on my link is on Alibaba
- it says it is Mexican
- it says the place of origin is Guangdong China
- it says the company is Xiamen Longree Craft Company (Fujian, China)
- but it doesn't say if they made it or just import them to ship worldwide or whether they were the distributor for the glass which was made in Guangdong China (which given it says that is the place of origin might be where it was made) or whether the 'place of origin' actually means where it would be shipped from, which given it also says it is Mexican is confusing.
It says they can turn out 5000 per month, it also says it is 'Chihully'(sic) inspired.
-
The source is the main thing to pay attention to on Alibaba or similar sites. For instance, much of the Chinese glass is called "Murano" on the Chinese sites because it is the style of the glass. It comes down to keyword spamming. A good example is the Anne Primrose glass that uses the phrase "Cristalleria di Murano" of something like that on all of its labels. People buy it thinking they are getting real Murano glass, when they are buying overpriced common Chinese glass.
Alibaba does have Mexico in its search, so it may handle some of it. However, I doubt they would import it first to China, then export it again. That would get awfully expensive. I notice that Heartofsklo's vase has Mexico as its source.