Topic: 5 Ice Pick Trumpet Flowers, "BM" applied mark?

[Mike Morgan]

Picked up this weight on eBay and am waiting for it to arrive. It's pretty-enough to be worth the $10 to me, but I have a gut feeling there's something more to it... it just looks like a decent quality item.

I saw one nearly identical to it -- pretty much only the flower color was different -- online recently, but I don't remember where or by whom. The artist, though, didn't have "BM" initials.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Wuff]

According to Andy's cane book Bobby Montgomery used a "BM" as pontil stamp. There is no picture included, however, so we can't be sure.

[Mike Morgan]

Just got it. A couple things I notice immediately:
1. it's larger and heavier than most, with a 12.25"/31cm circumference (about as big around as a softball) and weighing in at 2 lbs 2 oz.
2. it's clearer than most, both in glass color and in that there are very few bubbles
3. there's a "done-while-hot-looking" small dent at the very top (is the weight transferred to another rod to impress the pontil stamp?), and
4. the base isn't even, as if it wasn't set down evenly in the annealing oven.

The last two items, the seller "forgot" to mention in his listing, but they bring up another question: are seconds normally signed at all and, if so, do they tend to be signed or marked differently? I ask because this weight looks very similar to the two on this page by Bob & Maude St Clair.

I struck out on "Bobby (and Bob and Robert) Montgomery"... can't find anything whatsoever about him. Closest is that a Bob Montgomery was a pallbearer for a guy who worked at Corning! 

Still looking to re-find the similar one I saw the other day...

[alexander]

This style was/is made by several artists, a St Clair, and there are several of them, Joe Rice, Zimmerman and probably others.

Maude & Bob's weights are usually signed Maude & Bob St Clair and year so I would think this one
is not by them.

Some makers sign seconds, some sign them differently and some don't sign at all