Tuesday 26 June 2012

Alavna Vintage & Collectable Glass

My new webshop selling Vintage & Collectable Glass is now live: http://alavna.yobunny.co.uk/ lots more stock to add, so that'll keep me busy for the rest of the week!!!


Saturday 3 March 2012

Fighting mis-information

As a glassoholic I browse websites, antique shops, auctions, etc. and am constantly amazed (and horrified!) by the amount of incorrect information being pushed out into the world. The internet is a great resource for knowledge, but it's also a way of spreading bad info, wrong info and rubbish very easily.

Some of the myths relating to glass go along the lines of:

If it has a polished pontil mark it musty be Whitefriars. That's just not true, as many makers output has such polished pontil marks.

A ground base dates a piece to the 1930s. This isn't true either, ground bases appear on pieces of all ages!

But the most misleading myth I've seen of late was on a website where it was stated, "The bottom of your new piece of glass will, in nearly every case, offer you some kind of mark or another." Now I don't know the exact statistics, but I do know that this is so far from being true as to merit the status of a glass myth extraordinaire! I have thousands (yes, thousands!) of pieces of glass and a very small percentage of them carry a mark of any kind. I'd estimate less than 10% of my collection is marked in any way. There are makers who claim to mark every piece, and perhaps some do, but I have unmarked examples from some of those who claimed they did, but clearly didn't!

So, if your glass isn't marked, don't be surprised, it's not as uncommon as you might think. There are resources available to help you identify your glass, the Glass Message Board is full of lovely folks who have a wealth of knowledge, and are willing to share it. There are also sites with reference collections of labels and marks - you'll find links to them in my links section in the side panel of the blog.

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Great excitement today! Molyneux Webb glass...

Thanks to Neil H, a fellow glassie on the Glass Message Board, I now know that the sugar bowl I have which was my Grannie's, is actually a Molyneux Webb honey pot missing its lid. This makes it my 2nd piece of confirmed Manchester glass. :) The pink viking alongside the MW piece is by Pukeberg, and he should be ice clear, but seems to have suffered sun-purpling, which gives him a certain something....

Sunday 8 January 2012

My partner publishes his 1st book! Moonbeams by B.J. Morgan

I know this is nothing to do with glass at all, but I wanted to give my partner a wee plug for his 1st published novel. He's been writing it on and off for 30 years, and it's finally been published for the Kindle platform. If anyone would like to make his day and buy a copy, please use the link below, and thank you! He'd be thrilled!!! Click here to view the publisher spec sheet