Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: chriscooper on August 04, 2014, 07:12:44 PM
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Hi, not my photos a friend sent me them thought it was a good Scottish weight but puzzled it appears to have a cross of St George cane?
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Hi Chris,
It is an early Paul Ysart weight (Pre-war Moncrief, I think). Yes, that cane does really look like a St George cross. Not sure whether it was by design or by accident. May be KevinH will be able to tell us more.
SophieB
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Thank you Sophie for confirming believe it or not I told her I thought 1930s Paul Ysart.
Thanks too from Michelle Reader for your help :)
Chris
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Red Cross is also the flag of Barcelona, whence the Isart's started. Does not appear to have been used in France though.
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I had not realised that Saint George was the patron of Barcelona and Catalonia. One learns so much on this board!!!
SophieB
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Hi. I think St George is a widely used and popular figure -I have even seen an image of him slaying a dragon in a remote village on the Austrian / Italian border. He is patron saint of Russia, Egypt, Greece, Potugal, Ethiopia and many other countries, as well as cities including Moscow...so a busy chap!
Alan
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... Yes, that cane does really look like a St George cross. Not sure whether it was by design or by accident. May be KevinH will be able to tell us more.
SophieB
All I can say for certain is that I have seen a few Ysart canes which use a cruciform design and the colours vary. The example in Chris's weight is distinct in its colouring and in the form of the cross, in as much as it is quite a thin cross. Some of the cruciform canes have a thin layer of contrasting colour around the main cross section.
I have weights with a few examples of cruciform canes and some are simply elements of a complex cane. Others were used as a central feature of a simple cane. These elemental uses may not be easy to see in some weights. It is clear that at least some of the cruciform canes were made at Moncrieff's in the pre-war years as they can appear in pre-war labelled bottle stoppers.
Chris's weight is a good example of a Paul Ysart likely 1930s item, using a cane that can also be found in weights made at the Ysart Brothers works and perhaps also later into the Vasart Ltd years and beyond.
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St. Andrew is the patron sait of Amalfi in southern Italy, and his cross (like the Saltire) flag is used there.
I believe Saint Nicholas is the parton saint of thieves as well as being Santa Claus.
No wonder the last few popes have been so keen to create more saints - the existing ones are clearly overworked. ;)
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More photos is it unusual that the glass is pale purple she assures me it's not reflection because the ground is brown?
Chris
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Could it possibly be neodynium? It appears to have the correct sort of tinge to the shade of lilac.
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A "dark tint" is common in many Paul Ysart weights from the 1930s (& 1940s). Colour of the tint varies but purple is well known - most likely as a result of the manganese (common decolourant) in the glass batch.
Some say that the purple tint is because of too much manganese, and others say it's produced by the action of sunlight on the finished item over time (often called "sun-purpling"). One problem with the "sun-purpling" idea for Paul Ysart weights is the amount, and strength of sunlight in Scotland and the rest of the UK & Eire.
Maybe weights that spent some time holidaying in the southern states of the US could have gained a purple tan that way.
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Michelle Reader Trotter say's thank's for your help :)
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tell mich il gie her a fiver inc postage for it ;D
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I will message you with her reply Gary it's more 'colourful' than the weight.
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surely not more colourful than her homemade dvd though :o
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Im Back on with great thanks to Anne for helping me sort out my password.
Thanks to everyone who replied and helped ID this weight for me
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Hi. It is not from neodymium. The purple tinge to the glass is from the manganese that many glassmakers added to quench the typical iron green (as in bottles) that you get using pale beach sand. If you put in too much (which a certain P Ysart did quite often), or expose the glass to too much sunlight, it goes purple.
Alan
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There's no colour change at all either so I knew it wasn't neodymium
Sadly it does have a small bruise at the top and the base is badly finished
Thanks everybody
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Thanks to everybody who help and gave information on this weight Im now putting a message into the market place as I am selling
many thanks
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Hi Michelle,
Welcome back to the GMB... It is nice to hear from you again.
Interesting PY weight too.
SophieB