Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: CML on July 22, 2013, 09:49:35 PM
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New here and need some guidance Where can I go to find a list of paperweight or glass artists, their marks or signatures.
Needless to say I have a few Sigs I cannot read .
Also is there a place to go that will list ALL paperweight artists and their work....or am I dreaming?
TIA :(
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The Dictionary of Paperweight Signature Canes by Andrew Dohan illustrates the "marks" of many but not all. His more recent versions have been digital rather than print.
No one place will list them all. Nice fantasy.
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Somewhere on this board I believe there is a long list of names only - don't have time to look right now.
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Sach and Lustrous,
Thanks for your response! I knew it would be too good to be true. Guess I am going to have to bug you guys on some of my ID's . Maybe the hunt is what makes collecting this beauties so much fun.
Laz
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Hi.
I think that a comprehensive list of signatures is a near impossibility. Besides those makers for whom paperweights are a standard product, many thousands of small glass studios around the world make (or have made) the odd paperweight, and have sometimes signed them. And in my experience having a legible signature seems to be rare amongst glass artists!
Alan
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Thanks Alan---makes sense . Too Bad though.
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Here it is
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,20413.0.html
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in my experience having a legible signature seems to be rare amongst glass artists!
Alan
Writing legibly on glass is something less than straightforward. Using a diamond stylus it tends to want to run in a straight line rather than a smooth curve. Using a diamond bit in a Dremel it will pull in the direction the bit is spinning. Add to that the desire to make the signature unobtrusive and you get what you see. Thus the value of using a "signature" cane.
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Hi
'Up to a point, Lord Copper.' ;D
The signature on the weight below is reasonably legible, and that was made with a Dremel style engraver, by an amateur.
Alan
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and he spelt his name correctly. I think the problem is more that they are signatures and not just names. Jonathan Harris' is extremely legible and neat on his PWs
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paperweight makers are in the 1000's. I have lists of several hundred that do not include any of the major factories. and there are many factories that made them as well. Many were never signed and the signature canes were only used by a few that had the capacity to make good murine cane. Lampworkers have exploded over the last 60 years and there are many. Studios have opened and closed like people changing their socks. I know of a few hundred different individuals who have taken classes at my studio that made paperweights and signed them. IN the US there are 100's of little studios and who knows how many have worked for these and made paperweights. '
Needless to say, some are quality and some are not so quality.
I have a list of several hundred from the US that I put together for a presentation I gave to the Indiana paperweight collector's Assoc. last April. It, by no means, even scratches the surface of what has been produced. Documenting even just your own collection, if it is very big, is an endless labor of love.
This same things holds true for art glass marbles as well.
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Gary McClanahan published a newsletter "The Printy" up to about 2001. Together the issues had a list of paperweight makers organized A to Z starting with A in the first issue. Although the list is incomplete, the newsletter often had pictures of weights by some of the artists and also information about the years they worked, the artist's mark, and the factories they were associated with. I still use The Printy as a starting point when I can't identify a signature.
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LOL!! I said I was new at this. I just did not know to what extent my ignorance in this matter went. I appreciate everyone's comments and will now stop looking for that "unpublished" book of "Paperweight Marks and Signatures". That's right I actually thought there was a book somewhere that I had missed with ALL names listed.
I do have "the Dictionary of Paperweight Canes"--Now I know the road ends there.
Thanks for the replies.
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Hi
'Up to a point, Lord Copper.' ;D
The signature on the weight below is reasonably legible, and that was made with a Dremel style engraver, by an amateur.
Alan
Looks like Han Thornken to me........