Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Pinkspoons on May 25, 2023, 06:04:21 PM
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Recently bought this very large pear-shaped streaky/bubbly glass lamp, with brass parts marked Messenger's (trademark for lighting firm Samuel S Messenger & Sons, Birmingham). Messenger's closed down in the early 1930s after around 100 years of trading. The glass is a very nice vivid green-blue, with brown streaks and subtle opal streaks that only really show up when back-lit.
Two questions, because I can't find anything very similar:
1: Did it start life as an electric table lamp, or is it some kind of (possibly older) oil lamp base with later electrification?
Indicators it might not have:
The part that the bulb-holder is attached to screws on with the kind of tabbed screw-on fitting you find on kitchen things like pressure cookers and coffee grinders (I'm sure it has a proper name), which is unusual for electric lamps (but not unwelcome - it meant I could hide an earth tag inside and keep the old bulb-holder).
The inside of the lamp, when I bought it, was covered in many blobs of dried creosote that took a full day to soften and carefully remove with a stick, and made my kitchen smell like an old man's garden shed.
If this is the case, it wouldn't have been electrified too recently - the bulb-holder is almost certainly pre-war, and its manufacturer, J H Tucker and Co (also Birmingham), was bought up and vanished in the 1960s.
2: Who might've made the glass? It's very pretty, and almost looks like the kind of thing you'd expect from Sweden in the 1950s/60s. It reminds me of Clutha glass, but it's much more bubbly than other pieces I've seen.
Thanks for looking!
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The bubbles are a little bit Biot-ish, but I don't know if they were going that long ago and I don't know if they ever made lampshades. :)
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1956, according to their site.
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On a Clutha note, James Couper apparently did use a very similar blue-green colour (although there's still the 'big bubbles' problem):
https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/auction/lot/lot-93---christopher-dresser-1834-1904-for-james-couper--sons-glasgow/?lot=230000&so=4&st=james%20couper&sto=0&au=&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=1&pp=96&pn=1&g=1
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/145689957_attributed-to-dr-christopher-dresser-and-james-couper-and-sons-clutha-vase-circa-1895
https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/auction/lot/lot-25---christopher-dresser-1834-1904-james-couper--sons-glasgow/?lot=263289&so=4&st=clutha&sto=0&au=&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=1&pp=96&pn=1&g=1
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Could someone have used an older lamp and transferred the parts? Although I should think this might have been impossible given the size at the neck etc. Does it have a polished pontil mark at all?
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The base is moulded, so it probably always had fittings of some kind on top. I don't see any reason why the Messenger parts would be an addition, although the bulb-holder could be.
That said, the thread on the top of the Messenger part, where the bulb-holder attaches, is 1/2" / 26tpi, which was the British standard for electric light fittings (and motorcycles), and not too much else as far as I know.
It's a bit baffling.