Topic: Id needed on Amber dimpled bowl with blue rim

[Littleblackhen]

I would like to know who might have made this lovely amber dimpled footed bowl with a fluted blue rim, please?  It is very similar to the amber/blue vase I have posted in another thread, so I wondered if it might be the same maker?  The base is quite different though.

It has a snapped off pontil to the base and trailed glass decoration on the sides.

[Lustrousstone]

I would say that this bowl is a lot older than your vase. This one probably dates 1890-1930. It might be English, but it might be Czech. The blue rim is made of an opalescent glass - the opalescence is produced by reheating the top of the bowl. The main part of the bowl has been blown into a mould and then had bits added and hot worked and reheated

[krsilber]

With an unfinished pontil and those colors I would think it's more likely English than Czech...but not sure.

What would have been used for striking the opalescence on a piece like this?

[TxSilver]

The bowl reminds me a lot of older Fenton coin spot pieces. I am not a Fenton expert -- not even a novice -- but it was the first thought I had when I saw the bowl.

[Littleblackhen]

I had been thinking English, possibly Webbs or Stevens and Williams, but my other piece which is a markedly similar pattern but in bluerina,  (shown here http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,24194.0.html ) seems to be more likely to be American.  I have seen the pattern described as Polka Dot, Coin Dot, Rain Drops, Dots, Moon Drops, or  Inverted Thumbprint on various different sites.

[krsilber]

I suspect some of those names may be a case of sellers not knowing what to call a pattern if they're all talking about ones like yours.  Did they have attributions?  Coin Dot is usually a cased pattern like this [LINK REMOVED] Fenton Coin Dot.[/url]  The only Moondrops/Moon Drops pattern I could find is [LINK REMOVED] New Martinsville's, though that doesn't mean there aren't others.  All the patterns I've seen described as Inverted Thumbprint are optic, like your bluerina pitcher.  It may be a generic term for the treatment as well as a manufacturers' pattern name.  There are a few Polka Dot patterns.  I don't know any that match yours, but that doesn't mean much. 

I think you'll find that most of the patterns you mention are superficially like yours, but aren't really the same pattern.  Your dots are very regular, the circles well-delineated, they're close together, and they're depressions on the outside (right?  Hard to tell if convex or concave).  It looks like it was mold blown to that shape (except for the crimps), rather than blown in an optic mold to create the dots then blown in another mold, like your bluerina pitcher was.  I don't know who made it, but those are some things to watch for, anyway.

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[Lustrousstone]

Whether a pontil is finished or unfinished doesn't seem to be any indicator of where it's from geographically. Although I would have said blue and amber was more likely Czech than English.  :huh:

Gulliver (Victorian Decorative Glass, British Designs 1850-1914) shows an unattributed blue bowl with rigaree that looks to have been made in the same sort of mould.

I really don't think you will get any closer than a rough and broad time period unless you can find a catalogue image

[Littleblackhen]

I think you'll find that most of the patterns you mention are superficially like yours, but aren't really the same pattern.  Your dots are very regular, the circles well-delineated, they're close together, and they're depressions on the outside (right?  Hard to tell if convex or concave).  It looks like it was mold blown to that shape (except for the crimps), rather than blown in an optic mold to create the dots then blown in another mold, like your bluerina pitcher was.  I don't know who made it, but those are some things to watch for, anyway.

On the bowl, the dots are proud on the inside, but it is smooth on the outside, all the bumps are on the inside. Where the bowl has been shaped to the rim the dots have elongated and gone oval, as though they were on the glass and then were stretched.  Not knowing anything about glass production I wouldn't know how this effect would be achieved.

The vase is the same, bumpy inside and relatively smooth on the outside, with just some bumps left unsmoothed near the bottom, so the feeling is for the bumpy effect to have been put on first then the shaping done after, if that makes any sense.

[krsilber]

Oh!  Just goes to show how photos can fool ya (or me, anyway)!  Interesting that they are so regular on most of it.  The optic mold must have been a shape quite similar to the final one.  The dots around the edge would have been distorted when the edge was tooled.

Doesn't get you any closer to an ID.  I reckon Christine's right, you could have a tough time finding an attribution for this.

Whether a pontil is finished or unfinished doesn't seem to be any indicator of where it's from geographically.

  I don't think it's a hard and fast rule, but from what I've seen, Bohemian glass (at least before 1910; I don't know about later stuff) is more likely to have a ground and polished pontil.

Maybe it's American.

[Lustrousstone]

Looking at my collection of Victorian glass I have to disagree with the pontil issue