Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Paul S. on December 11, 2011, 05:30:55 PM
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I know they are hardly exciting, but there was a reason for showing these, which was simply that........
I had always assumed that you put these under the castors of pianos or other heavy furniture, just to avoid making big dents in the carpet but....... I've just read the reason why they are called insulators, and it wasn't anything to do with with the carpets.
Apparently the Victorians were obsessed with home entertainment, of which playing the piano was perhaps the most popular pastime. These glass cups, were introduced to insulate/deaden/suppress the sound of the piano when played. So, thanks to Raymond Notley's wonderful little booklet 'Popular Glass of the C19 and C20 Centuries', I'm now wiser. Incidentally, this is a cracking good read (if you're into pressed glass) - full of facts and small enough to be read in the bath.
However, I suppose most GMB members already knew this.
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They are also to prevent marking. The furniture only ones tend to be smaller and almost impossible to find.
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So that's what those things were for.........I've always wondered .......
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Usually described as ash trays or salts. Interesting, we picked up a uranium one the other day (style as top right in Paul's pic) that has obviously been used for its intended purchase from the wear, BUT upside down!
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These were in common use until at least the 1960s.
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in my picture, the top left example is uranium, quite a nice yellowy-green colour.
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Have you tested the top right ones?
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Did you see the Time Team excavation of Buck Mill (watermill) at Stoke Trister in Somerset? Their finds expert (apparently brilliant at pottery fragments) described a broken blue or green piano insulator as an Art Deco ashtray!
As a child I remember ours, made of bakelite, had discs of carpet stuck to their bases, apparently so that they still worked on lino.
I've seen a kitchen or scullery where all the main wooden furniture (not the chairs) was on piano insulators to protect the legs from water when the tiled or stone floor was mopped clean.
... and you find all gazunders upside down, at least here in Britain. I see both flower set plinths and piano insulators upside down regularly at fairs, antique centres, and car boots, several times a year.
Bernard C. 8)
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Nope, didn't see that Bernard but, as Lustrousstone suggests, would seem an ashtray was a not uncommon substitute use (I guess anything colourful and angular in design is 'deco' for some people). They seem to span a long period of manufacture, although haven't a clue as to dating my examples, and although I guess mine are possibly all British, they were doubtless made everywhere (I bet at least one of these is from Sowerby - patterns are shown in both the Victorian and George V CDs from the Thistlewoods). I had checked with u.v. originally, and it would seem there is indeed only one uranium example here. However, the bottom right green example appears to have more than its fair share of manganese as you can see in picture three - and just for interest picture four shows how these particular colours appear to have been quite common to utility items.
Silber and Flemming quote colours of puce/amber/blue/canary/green and flint (perhaps their canary was uranium) - but if you want a reall exotic example then there is apparently one made in the shape of a Mammoth's foot, complete with hairy textured surface. :)
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I have picked up one or two nice black "bowls" but my favourite upside things are the two "stemmed bowls" you get with dressing table sets. :o How stable are they!!
You can still buy plastic furniture castors.
Canary is almost certainly uranium and I would love an elephant's foot. The Americans and the Aussies are quite keen on piano insulators and will pay quite silly money for something a bit different even with the inevitable damage.
Here are mine, though I've only kept uranium examples. http://lustrousstone.co.uk/cpg/thumbnails.php?album=13
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... Silber and Flemming quote colours of puce/amber/blue/canary/green and flint (perhaps their canary was uranium) - but if you want a reall exotic example then there is apparently one made in the shape of a Mammoth's foot, complete with hairy textured surface. :)
Paul — "Canary" is the only unambiguous term for uranium yellow, with a extremely long provenance throughout the English speaking world. "Yellow" might not be uranium. "Vaseline" suffers from never quite being sure whether you mean yellow, green, or something in between, and it's very modern collectors' terminology by comparison. You will also frequently meet "canary opalescent".
The mammoth's foot is a really magnificent piece of glass. I've been fortunate to have one through my hands. There's a photograph in Notley, Raymond, Popular Glass of the 19th & 20th Centuries, Miller's, 2000.
Bernard C. 8)
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thanks to all for their contributions - I'm going into town later today looking for wealthy Americans and people from down under ;)
Canary opalescent sounds so good you could almost eat it, but I would like a puce one. Is it my imagination, or is puce an uncommon colour in pressed glass?
thanks, and yes, I've now seen the Mammoth's foot example in the book - undoubtedly rare, and can only hope you did well with it Bernard.
I think we forget very easily (especially with our obsession with glass that 'glows') that in the C19 and well into the C20, people had no conception of what uranium glass really was (and ignorant of its reaction to u.v., obviously). They saw it simply as a canary or oily yellowish green coloured glass which nonethless had odd properties in morning sunlight or failing daylight, and would never have called it uranium glass anyway. This apparently, was one of the reasons that Raymond Slack omitted all reference to the word uranium, specifically, in his book. :)
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James Measell has just kindly reminded me that the mammoth's foot piano insulator carries the John Derbyshire TM and a registration lozenge. Checking Jenny Thompson, I found my margin note opposite the registration for 12 May 1874. Derbyshire registered another in 1873, but this earlier one is a mystery to me.
Thanks, James.
Bernard C. 8)
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jusy sold one on ebay nice colour. bought it at a car boot 50p they thought it was an ashtray.
(http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r38/stewtoyou/th_DSCF0250.jpg) (http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r38/stewtoyou/?action=view¤t=DSCF0250.jpg)
(http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r38/stewtoyou/th_DSCF0247.jpg) (http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r38/stewtoyou/?action=view¤t=DSCF0247.jpg)
(http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r38/stewtoyou/th_DSCF0243.jpg) (http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r38/stewtoyou/?action=view¤t=DSCF0243.jpg)
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I have an image of the John Derbyshire 1874 piano foot on my website
http://sites.google.com/site/molwebbhistory/Home/registered-designs/derbyshire-brothers-designs-by-date/derbyshire-brothers-1873-1874
JD produced 3 registered piano feet, Percival & Vickers did 2, another one from Ker & Webb and one from Burtles & Tate also. Drop me an email via the website if you wish to see any of the original design sketches.
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thanks all - especially Neil - and the Mammoth's foot is a uranium example into the bargain! - will come back to this thread later today. :)
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My parents were given a green set of thses when I was a kid. I think that was the beginning of my glass love affair. I wish they had kept them. :)
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I researched the functionality of piano feet some time ago and ran into a scientific report proving that glass and aluminium actually fortify vibrations in stead of dampening them.
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I've got them here in the house with the cast iron radiators resting on them :D ... the house dates from 1870, bought it 14 years ago and they were already there.
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I've got them here in the house with the cast iron radiators resting on them :D ... the house dates from 1870, bought it 14 years ago and they were already there.
Those would have been made to rest stoves on. Iron stoves needed to be isolated or else burn through the floor. #nofunifanagafallsonyou
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No, I can imagine, that would ruin dinner (took me a while to figure that one out :D ).
I never asked myself any questions about them, they were there already and there to stay ... I couldn't move them if I even wanted to.
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A photo would be interesting please Anne
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yes, I too would love to see the radiator Anne ;D ;)
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I don't know if it's worth taking a picture of (do I really need to take a picture of a b....y radiator? :-\) ... chips and all, but I'll see what I can do tomorrow with light ... as the hall's got stained glass windows natural light's poor. The insulators are similar to the ones in Paul's picture, the clear glass ones at the top, no star pattern though, just plain glass.
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Anne - sorry, being silly again - ignore me - I was joking about the radiator :-*
I think that Christine is especially keen to see if you have any that are different from those in my original photo. On the GMB we see many insulators with some patterns turning up commonly. If you have any that are noticeably different from mine then yes, we would like to see them, but do appreciate your comment that you can't separate them from the radiator legs.
If it proves too difficult to photograph them, you must ignore our request.
To the best of my knowledge, I don't recall seeing any on the GMB of which it could be said categorically they definitely weren't made in the U.K.
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Of course, Paul, i understand it's interesting and i've managed to get one from underneath the leg of the radiator. I'll post it tomorrow, if the house still stands, that is... probably gets taken down with the radiator collapsing.
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;D ;D
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Er I was more interested to see it in situ :-[
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opps - sorry Christine :-[
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Well, I guess there's a first for everything, I'm not sure if a radiator's ever been posted here before, but as you can see, nothing fancy (and they need to be sandblasted and painted btw ::)).
I've always thought that one of them, the one that I managed to remove, had sculpted edges, but in fact, once I've put on my glasses, it's chipped all the way around. There's perhaps one cm of the bottom that's intact, and it's just a flat and simple mould. Some of the other ones have a slight concave or hollow top, from whichever way you look at them, that's been moulded. Sorry for the condition it is in, it's covered with bits of plaster and paint as you can see, but then I've never managed to get my hands on it properly.
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Just for show, and sorry for changing the subject, some images of the stained glass windows and door, they go all the way to the ceiling at 12 Ft and cover one side of the hall... it dates from around 1900 and it's every time a challenge to clean them. Both radiators in the hall have a narrow windows above them (pic 1&4) and the fan-shaped window is above the door (pic 3).
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To the best of my knowledge, I don't recall seeing any on the GMB of which it could be said categorically they definitely weren't made in the U.K.
These were definitely not made in the United Kingdoms.
The one on the left is - t.t.b.o.m.k. - made by VMC in Reims; the one on the right has "Déposé" embossed to underline its unenglishness.
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thanks to Anne for taking the time and trouble to post pix of her radiator supports and stained glass windows - which I would like to buy please ;) ;) - they look a lot better than the insulators Anne, and am sure most folk would love them. :)
thanks to Ivo for posting the unenglish insulators - very useful to have pix of those for the GMB archive since those that are posted here, usually, don't have Continental provenance.
I don't necessarily know that we are the 'United Kingdoms' - the Scots want to leave their partnership with England and remain in the E.U. - the Welsh have slogans aimed at the English and worded along the lines of.... .. "buy a holiday home (in Wales) and come home to a real fire .... the Cornish folk wish apparently to be a country of their own .... and Ireland remains as contentious as ever.
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There are still two kingdoms in the U.K., really.
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I love seeing stained glass still in place. I suspect the radiator feet are furniture casters rather than piano insulators from their shallow rims, as is Ivo's blue one. PC has clear triangular ones under a vintage gas stove she has (now known as a storage cupboard and plant stand)
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Thought I'd add mine to the mix, it says...K.H Thomas, Inventor Kidsgrove, all four are a bit rough ::) ;D