: Collecting Old Glass English and Irish by Yoxall J H James Henry Sir - Glassware Collectors and collecting; Glassware Great Britain

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INDEX 107

The glassware made in England and Ireland during the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth century was the best of the kind ever made. In quality, tint, feel, and ring the plain blown glass was a beautiful product, and when it was cut or engraved the decoration was done by fine craftsmen and often with excellent taste. Old glass has its own peculiar charm; the dark beauty of the crystal metal, the variety of form, the bell-like ring when flipped, the satiny feeling of the surface, the sparkle of the cut facets, and the combination of gracefulness and usefulness attract a collector: in cabinets it shines, gleams, glows, and sparkles in a reticent, well-bred way.

Then there is attraction in the historical and social traditions which have gathered around the ware; romance lingers on in the Jacobite glasses, the Williamite glasses, the Georgian glasses, the rummers and groggers engraved and drunk from to celebrate the victories of Nelson or famous elections; and humour resides in many of the relics of the punch-bowl and six-bottle days. To honour particular occasions one's fine old glasses may come out of the cabinet and be used at table again; I know a collector of "captain glasses" who brings them out for champagne. For decoration or in use old glass has a refined, artistic, aristocratic air.

NEITHER TOO RARE NOR TOO PLENTIFUL

The sound of the past seems to throb in the ring of this frail and dainty ware; at your touch the cry of the bygone seems heard again. Because of fragility, enough of eighteenth-century glass has not lasted on to make it common, and yet so much of it is still extant that a collector's hunt for it is by no means a hopeless quest. It may still be acquired at reasonable prices from dealers in antiques, and a hunter for it in odd corners, who buys in shillings, not in pounds, may reasonably hope to pick up many fine specimens for next to nothing even yet. Four years ago I bought a fine drawn cordial glass for 2d. Within the past three years I have myself bought a perfect captain glass for 3s. 6d.; within the last year I have bought six punch-lifters for 17s. 6d. in all, uncommon as these bibulous old siphons are. A large Bristol coloured-glass paper-weight may cost you ?3 in a dealer's shop, because three years ago they began to be a "rage," but within the past two years I have bought a Bristol glass article, equally beautiful in colour and glass-flowers, and much rarer, for 2s. Footless coaching glasses and thistle-shaped fuddling glasses are seldom seen, even on a dealer's shelves, but I have found one of each, in odd corners, for 6d.

THE TIME TO COLLECT IS NOW

Now, if ever, is the time to collect old glass rather cheaply, for already the prices of it are mounting in a remarkable way. Thirty years ago old wine glasses engraved with roses, rosebuds, and butterflies--rose glasses, as they are called--could be bought for half-a-crown apiece or less--dozens of them; this price has multiplied nearly twentyfold. Waterford cut-glass grows more and more dear to buy, from dealers who know it when they possess it--they will soon be selling it as if it were antique silver, at so much per ounce--but only last year I bought in a provincial town a captain glass of this ware for 15s., though ?8 was the price asked for one just like it in the West End. Now, if ever, is the time for a beginner to take up this line of collecting; old English and Irish glass will never again be so easy to find at reasonable prices as it is now.

SUCH CONNOISSEURSHIP NOT DIFFICULT

Collecting is a form of education, but it is not difficult to become a knowledgeable collector of old glass. Counterfeits are sent out by the thousand, forgeries lie in wait, totally new glassware, imitative of the old, is on sale in hundreds of curio dealers' shops, some of them otherwise honest and respectable; but only ignorance or carelessness need be taken in. A little study, a little observation, a little care, and the beginner will soon be able to avoid mistakes. Connoisseurship in old glass is less difficult than it is in old china, for example; porcelain or earthenware collecting is more various, more detailed, has reference to longer periods of manufacture, and involves much more specific knowledge than glass-collecting does. Yet I have known two or three collectors of porcelain who declined to begin collecting old glass because, they said, they would "never dare"--as if an almost miraculous skill were needed to become a connoisseur in old glass! In point of fact, this is the easiest hobby to study and know; glass-collecting requires an eye for the different shades and tints of the metal, a finger-tip for the feel of it, an ear for the ring of it, and not much money as yet, and practically that is all. There are no trade-marks to puzzle or deceive you; there is no such distinction, difficult to understand and master, as between "soft" china and "hard." At present old glass is easy to know, and not difficult to find.

ADVANTAGES ASSOCIATED WITH GLASS

The collecting of old glass is not yet systematized; there are no dealers' catalogues of it or prices current. For the next few years this advantage will continue in connexion with old glass. Every dealer knows the high price which square-marked Worcester china can command; every second-hand bookseller knows the price current of first editions, or copies of rare books; but such is not the case with old glass as yet. Systematization has hardly begun; there has been little research into the history of makes and the names of makers. Here is another advantage for a collector: he may discover things of that kind at present unknown, and thus attach his name to the history of old glass which will some day be written. A local collector may at no great cost make a donation of his treasures to the local museum. There is no public collection of Newcastle-made glass at Newcastle, for instance, or of Sunderland-made glass at Sunderland, and no local antiquary has studied the history of the fine glass products made on the Tyne and the Wear. Nobody knows which kinds of glass were made at Norwich or Lynn. A history of Stourbridge glass-making and glassware has yet to be written. So that research, that additional delight of collecting, is more open in connexion with glass than with any other well-known "line."

COLLECTABLE GLASS ARTICLES

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