Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: bat20 on July 21, 2013, 12:56:41 PM
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hello all,really pleased to have found some more pub glass today,i hope no one minds i've posted them together,on the right a rummer and i'm hope i'm right in thinking late Victorian 1880's fluted with polished pontil,the one on the left i'm guessing the same date hand cut, rim wd 5.5,ht11.75 and base wd 6cm ,also has a white bit encased in it during the making,they make my crystal rummer seem well smart,but they have so much about them this could be getting serious!! ;D...is the smaller glass for port,thanks again..
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not always easy to date these popular glasses - some of them are shapes that were around for a longish time - but I'd suggest a wider range of say 1850 - 1880 possibly.
The rummer appears to have a capstan shaped stem, and the cutting (assuming it is cut) looks to be very broad. I've a feeling that when the cuts are virtually flat (try putting a steel ruler across them) then it might be more a case of slice cutting - I think that ordinarily flutes need to be seen to be at least slightly concave, although some folk call cutting like yours 'flat flutes' (they were a very popular type of decoration on glasses and decanters).
This would be hand cutting - can't imagine it could be mechanised.
White stones (or seeds) were quite common on some of these lower quality items - I like to see them - it provides some authenticity of age. :)
As for the smaller glass, I believe that traditionally those used for port were smaller than a sherry glass - so leave it to you to decide - this one may well have been for either drink.
You don't comment as to any 'ring' so assume neither is of lead glass.
After blowing the bowl, and having attached the stem and foot to the bowl, the glass needed to be finished at the rim, and this was achieved by attaching a pontil rod to the underside of the foot. Having completed the rim, the whole glass was then snapped away from the pontil rod leaving a 'scar' - which was ground down and smoothed as you see on the bottoms of your glasses. It won't help to date though, at least not in this instance.
Try Wilkinson's 'The Hallmarks of Antique Glass' - it's quite good for descriptions of various drinking glass procedures and styles. There's an absence of good books dealing with C19 general drinking glasses, unfortunately.
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Spot on Paul they are flat,i really appreciate you taking the time to help me with these glasses ,i've got to say i find it fascinating and and very much enjoying the very steep learning curve.Just to add they are not lead crystal even though the light in the photo may make them look like it,thanks very much again..
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should have perhaps commented that my main reason for extending backwards the date line for such pieces is....................
Some time during the 1860's, workers developed the 'gadget' which removed the need to finish the glass by means of attaching a pontil rod.
The end of the pontil rod was adapted to include a means of holding the foot of the glass securely - presumably the rod remained the same length - and this terminal adaptor was called the gadget - and the rod became a tube. In very brief terms a spring loaded device which grasped the foot of a glass.
When the glass object was finished a spring loaded rod was pushed within the tube thus releasing the gadgets hold on the foot.
Glasses which have been made using a gadget, are seen commonly with remnants a Y or T shaped mark on the underside of the foot - this mark is apparently evidence of shears or some part of the gadget leaving an impression - very common as in these pub glasses, and seen mostly in pieces from the last quarter of the C19.
and the point of all this.............................................although the gadget may have started life around the 1860's, becoming increasingly more common toward the end of the C19, there must have been an overlap in many small factories whereby some continued with the traditional method of using the pontil rod for a number of years. Thus making it impossible to date accurately pieces like yours whether they have either a gadget mark or pontil depression, and thus requiring the wider period of origin I suggested.
Then again, it's possible to find pressed tall thumb print ales - examples of which are on the Thistlewood's CD catalogue of Sowerby production (volume III) Pattern Book XI for 1885 - which have a snapped unground pontil scar (although I have only one out of ten ales alike this, and I can't say positively Sowerby - probably a pressed item commonly from various sources). I've only just noticed that Silber & Fleming omit this type of ale glass completely from their early 1880's catalogues. Bit of a mystery - I'd not previously been aware of this - presumably thumb prints were on the way out at that time, and straight sided beer glasses were being born.
So snapped scars, ground depressions and gadget marks seems to all occur during the last third of the C19. Again, Wilkinson covers the subject of the gadget in some detail.
sorry this is long winded, and I know we have been over all this before, so won't mention it again.
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Cheers paul,not at all long winded and a gold mine for newbies,trip to the libary for me this week,i think they will be pleased to get a few back aswell!! ;)