Topic: piano insulators

[Paul S.]

I know they are hardly exciting, but there was a reason for showing these, which was simply that........
I had always assumed that you put these under the castors of pianos or other heavy furniture, just to avoid making big dents in the carpet but....... I've just read the reason why they are called insulators, and it wasn't anything to do with with the carpets.   
Apparently the Victorians were obsessed with home entertainment, of which playing the piano was perhaps the most popular pastime.     These glass cups, were introduced to insulate/deaden/suppress the sound of the piano when played.      So, thanks to Raymond Notley's wonderful little booklet 'Popular Glass of the C19 and C20 Centuries', I'm now wiser.           Incidentally, this is a cracking good read (if you're into pressed glass)  -  full of facts and small enough to be read in the bath.
However, I suppose most GMB members already knew this.

[Lustrousstone]

They are also to prevent marking. The furniture only ones tend to be smaller and almost impossible to find.

[ian the sculptor]

So that's what those things were for.........I've always wondered  .......

[Lustrousstone]

Usually described as ash trays or salts. Interesting, we picked up a uranium one the other day (style as top right in Paul's pic) that has obviously been used for its intended purchase from the wear, BUT upside down!

[Ivo]

These were in common use until at least the 1960s.

[Paul S.]

in my picture, the top left example is uranium, quite a nice yellowy-green colour.

[Lustrousstone]

Have you tested the top right ones?

[Bernard C]

Did you see the Time Team excavation of Buck Mill (watermill) at Stoke Trister in Somerset?   Their finds expert (apparently brilliant at pottery fragments) described a broken blue or green piano insulator as an Art Deco ashtray!

As a child I remember ours, made of bakelite, had discs of carpet stuck to their bases, apparently so that they still worked on lino.

I've seen a kitchen or scullery where all the main wooden furniture (not the chairs) was on piano insulators to protect the legs from water when the tiled or stone floor was mopped clean.

... and you find all gazunders upside down, at least here in Britain.   I see both flower set plinths and piano insulators upside down regularly at fairs, antique centres, and car boots, several times a year.

Bernard C.  

[Paul S.]

Nope, didn't see that Bernard but, as Lustrousstone suggests, would seem an ashtray was a not uncommon substitute use (I guess anything colourful and angular in design is 'deco' for some people).    They seem to span a long period of manufacture, although haven't a clue as to dating my examples, and although I guess mine are possibly all British, they were doubtless made everywhere (I bet at least one of these is from Sowerby  -  patterns are shown in both the Victorian and George V CDs from the Thistlewoods).   I had checked with u.v. originally, and it would seem there is indeed only one uranium example here.     However, the bottom right green example appears to have more than its fair share of manganese as you can see in picture three  -  and just for interest picture four shows how these particular colours appear to have been quite common to utility items.
Silber and Flemming quote colours of puce/amber/blue/canary/green and flint (perhaps their canary was uranium)  -  but if you want a reall exotic example then there is apparently one made in the shape of a Mammoth's foot, complete with hairy textured surface.

[Lustrousstone]

I have picked up one or two nice black "bowls" but my favourite upside things are the two "stemmed bowls" you get with dressing table sets.  How stable are they!!

You can still buy plastic furniture castors.

Canary is almost certainly uranium and I would love an elephant's foot. The Americans and the Aussies are quite keen on piano insulators and will pay quite silly money for something a bit different even with the inevitable damage.

Here are mine, though I've only kept uranium examples. http://lustrousstone.co.uk/cpg/thumbnails.php?album=13