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Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: Wuff on February 03, 2016, 01:13:42 PM

Title: Paperweight - or something else?
Post by: Wuff on February 03, 2016, 01:13:42 PM
What is this - just an unusually shaped paperweight - or is it meant to serve another purpose?

Height 11.5 cm / diameter stand 9 cm / diameter knob 6 cm / weight 695 g.
Title: Re: Paperweight - or something else?
Post by: chopin-liszt on February 03, 2016, 01:39:08 PM
 ;D
It looks like a meat tenderiser, but I'm sure it would hold paper down very effectively too.
Title: Re: Paperweight - or something else?
Post by: Wuff on February 03, 2016, 04:29:52 PM
Thank you for the suggestion, Sue ... I guess the shape could have been copied, but would you use glass to make such an item? Also, the meat tenderisers I'm familiar with, have a "spiky" surface (base) - my item is polished flat, and shows no sign of wear at all (so it at least would never have been used).

I guess the next question cannot be answered before more is known about the purpose: where / by whom was it made?
Title: Re: Paperweight - or something else?
Post by: chopin-liszt on February 03, 2016, 04:44:00 PM
I wouldn't really like to use glass on meat. I don't want to eat broken glass. :-X

My guts think there is a hint of Beranek about it.  :)
Title: Re: Paperweight - or something else?
Post by: LesBeatiques on February 03, 2016, 04:54:53 PM
It looks like a coffee tamper used to make espresso. However the recommend force needed for a proper tamp is 30lbs...Not sure I would want to be using glass when applying this much pressure.
Title: Re: Paperweight - or something else?
Post by: Wuff on February 03, 2016, 05:08:48 PM
My guts think there is a hint of Beranek about it.  :)
Beranek at least has a fish in their catalogue (http://www.refinex.cz/bg/catalogue/send.aspx?partnum=0&pk=614) with a yellow surface decoration of similar type and (as far as it can be told from images) colour, designed by Jan Exnar.
Title: Re: Paperweight - or something else?
Post by: chopin-liszt on February 03, 2016, 05:38:33 PM
I gave my brother an Skrodlovice Oliva pwt, which was a clear cube of glass containing a round orange sphere, with a spiral trail of black around it, and just one corner of the cube missing to expose that part of the sphere.
(Commercial images here;
http://www.zfolio.com/Ladislav-Oliva/Art-Glass-Paperweights-products

That might be another direction to look?

But Beranek do have form for bright primary colours with dark spirals.
Title: Re: Paperweight - or something else?
Post by: Anne E.B. on February 04, 2016, 08:09:13 PM
It would make a good darning mushroom, except I don't think people darn things anymore as they are more likely to throw things away instead.
Title: Re: Paperweight - or something else?
Post by: chopin-liszt on February 05, 2016, 06:46:37 PM
 :)
Amongst the proliferation of charity shops, betting shops, pawn-brokers and loan sharks, clothing repair and alteration shops seem to be the only kinds of shops that are surviving on high streets at the moment.

People are getting clothes repaired again.
Title: Re: Paperweight - or something else?
Post by: essi on February 06, 2016, 07:41:01 PM
May be way of the mark, look up glass smoothers. Wuff's example seems to be a modern version of these items. (maybe).
Tim