Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: brucebanner on August 20, 2015, 12:30:10 PM
-
Any thoughts on this one, very dirty glass with bubbles and brown streaks and a lot of base wear.
The closest glass i can find was described as a dram glass.
The ball stem is hollow.
4 1/4 inches in height, 2 inches across the rim and 2 1/4 inches across the base.
Regards Chris.
-
Hi Chris,do you think it's leaded?it looks like it may have a straw tone to the glass?
-
Not sure it looks straw coloured but glows light green under UV, im thinking it might be the oldest drinking glass i have found recently but i have had a good look through all my old glass books and can't see it.
It's either very old, very well used or very sandpapered.
-
Umm,not something I've come across before,has it got loads of small bubbles in it like say early soda glass?and does the wear look mossy or directional.
-
Probably way off as usual,but I'm thinking schnapps glass?
-
if the tone is yellowish, then it's not going to be lead. If you look in Barrington Haynes, he seems to be calling things like this - with a ball, or compressed ball - shape at the base of the stem - 'thistle stems' - for obvious reasons.
I thought that might have implied such pieces were of Scottish origin, so I looked through Fleming's 'Scottish & Jacobite Glass' - but no joy.
I did wonder if it might have been German.
I'd have thought it was a dram glass, but as for date I'm really not sure.
-
looks like high manganese content which probably puts it somewhere 1870-1920, give or take a few.
-
Not sure it looks straw coloured but glows light green under UV
"Lead glass" often (or perhaps usually) shows as light green under longwave UV - which is the type (range) of UV that most collectors use to examine items with. As Ivo says, the light green reaction is due to the manganese used as a decolourant.
A UV test for "lead based" glass normally requires shortwave UV. The reaction of "lead glass" under shortwave UV will normally be a clear and obvious shade of blue.
-
I'm using a bank note tester, not sure if that's longwave or shortwave, i posted a pressed glass creamer on here 1840'ish in date a couple of days ago and that glowed the same. The UV test on clear glass must have a date range as Ivo suggests? it could be a good indication of how old something is and if it's been copied or not.
If this little dram glass i have posted has a high level of manganese in it to be used as a decolourant why is it a dirty yellowish like colour?
-
A standard bank note tester will be longwave uv.
Unfortunately, dating of glass by uv testing can only be very generalized. (And that applies to both longwave and shortwave uv.)
Manganese, as a decolourant, and therefore in a high enough percentage of the batch to give a green longwave uv reaction, was, I think, used from at least the "glass rediscovery" years of 15th century Venice. I am not sure when Manganese was generally superseded as a decolourant by such as selenium. But its use was certainly common up to at least the mid 20th century.
So on that basis, a green longwave uv reaction could indicate a date period of at least five centuries!
Some people have used the "brightness" of a green reaction to indicate a suggested time period, or even a particular factory / maker. Sadly, what some people see as a "bright green" reaction due to manganese is actually down to uranium - but some claims for "uranium glass" can often be an indication of "excess manganese".
Not an easy subject for me to understand or draw conclusions from - and that is just on the subject of manganese as a decolourant!
-
I think this glass has been around for a while as there is wear to the rim top surface, not sure if that's from being turned upside down or teeth wear, i'm bored at work at the minute and after a few hours looking up Ballusters i have come across something very slightly similar but not the same colour here, http://18cglass.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2&sort=20a&page=4,
The link i think explains the ball started off at the base and headed up the glass as years went on, due to the glass being tricky to hold.
Not that i'm assuming it's as old as the one in the link of course.
-
The foot could be an indicator to it's age,it isn't folded maybe something you would expect for a baluster,so it's almost like some one looking over at the English glass and doing a version of it,30 to 50 years later maybe?l
-
Well iv'e come back from work and some old glass glows some doesn't, the few old continental glasses i have glow really bright, a couple of folded foots glow and a couple of others don't, perhaps there are others with similar old glass of age that glow and others are clear, ive gone through about 40 clear pieces as i mainly collect coloured drinking glasses, and it seems to make no odds the age of a glass to the glow. Some old Murano glass i have glows some 1860's Stourbridge glass shows nothing.
-
Manganese had been used in many products, but most between circa 1860 and circa 1915 when selenium replaced it as a decolourant. A lot of (american pressed) glass was artificially sun purpled in the window sill, and even faster when antique dealers discovered UV lamps. Manganese in glass is easily detected by the use of a black light: if it shows up yellow, it is suitable for this type of falsification. That is why you think 1860-1915 for any product with a particular yellow refraction under UV light.
-
It is also found in newer products too, so I would move that dateline to at least the 1950s
-
Hi,
Just back from an internet free holiday (lovely) and saw this thread ,
I would agree with bat20 that this glass is Continental probably German and a schnapps glass from the 18th c,if it were an English glass yes Paul S ,we would call it a dram glass ,
The UV reaction tells me it is non lead,which is all I look for in old glass , is it lead glass or not ,
I think the term thistle mentioned by PaulS is in regard to bowl shapes , not stem shapes , the thistle bowl being fairly common in the 18th c , also that the stem shapes referred to are in regard to whether the glass has a True Baluster stem or an Inverted baluster stem , the True Baluster being fairly uncommon with the inverted Baluster being much more common , whether this was to aid grip or purely a style preference is unknown.
So my bet would be ,A continental schnapps glass(dram glass) most likely German and from the mid to late 18th c ,
You will find many similar examples on here
http://www.ebay.de/sch/17001799-/60865/i.html?_armrs=1&_from=R9&_ipg=&_pcats=7478%2C353&_dct=1&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEFSRCHX%3ASRCH
cheers ,
Peter ,
ps I think your sweetmeat looks fine to me for a nice period example .
-
Thanks everyone for your thought's and input, much appreciated.