there looks to be an absence of 'glass sickness' - that iridescent surface discolouration that appears frequently on older material where the glass has been buried in 'soil' for some considerable time - so the conclusion could be that this fragment is perhaps more modern than is suggested??
When we say "19th century plus" - is there the possibility of material as recent as mid C20 - or even later? - and my thoughts re the yellow/greenish colour of the glass might be that this item is of a soda glass composition rather than a lead glass - greyish/bluish hues tend to be associated with lead glass. Perhaps depending on which type of glass is buried, then perhaps one or the other is affected more by the type of soil, leading to more or less deterioration of the glass surface - regret my knowledge of how glass is affected by either acid or alkaline soils is zero.
Glass items that surface when digging C19 and early C20 dumps almost always show sickness to some degree, and rather obviously the older the deposit the more likely it is to be affected more heavily by iridescence - in the Surrey Wealden (Chiddingfold) areas where the very early C16 French Huguenot's set up their vagrant glass making sites, some of the pieces I've picked up are the most beautiful I've seen, and you can understand why modern makers have tried to copy that beauty - it's also very thin and fragile - and can often be found lying on the surface. Pre Mr. Ravenscroft too, so almost certainly all soda glass.
Sorry, not the remotest idea of the history or age, or anything, of this piece - would it help if we knew the location (not specific) from whence this piece was found?
Topic: A fragment with tooled decoration. ID help please! (Read 835 times)
