David Goldstein of Naples, Florida writes:
I think you can safely assume an unsigned engraved VDS piece was probably done by Steuben. However, if it is not a standard pattern, it may have been done by any of the other engravers in Corning ( or elsewhere) who might have bought the VDS piece from Steuben.

The answer to the question about engravers and cutters is that the larger companies (Hawkes, Steuben, Sinclaire) would split up larger orders. In addition, there were many smaller shops as well as independent engravers and cutters who worked out of their homes. Cottage industry was and is still a part of the business.

Next, Beth Shaut of Corning says:
Most of my experience with the Verre de Soie, Hawkes engraved pieces are almost always signed but not all other types of glass cut & engraved by Hawkes were signed. Also to my knowledge both Hawkes and Steuben had their own engravers and did not share that task.
Steuben engraved and cut was not always signed either. We have had both signed and unsigned Steuben piece. I have also found that most of the delicately engrave with a tiny floral pattern were sign Steuben Hand Wrought

Finally, Tom Dimitroff of Corning offers these comments:
Carder’s Steuben factory made many items that would subsequently be sold to other manufacturers that would use his pieces as parts of another product. Lamp bases are perhaps the most widely know such example.

It has been my experience that Carder would not let anything signed Steuben go out of his factory to another which would use his parts in conjunction with other factories’ parts.

Carder sold a large number of Verre de Soie “blanks” to Hawkes. Hawkes would then engrave these and sometimes sign them “HAWKES.” The problem is that Hawkes, like most glass companies, did not sign every piece.

So: * If a piece of engraved Verre de Soie is signed HAWKES, it was engraved by Hawkes.
* If a piece of engraved Verre de Soie is signed Steuben, it was both made and engraved at Steuben.
* If a piece of engraved Verre de Soie is not signed, it may have been engraved at Hawkes or at
Steuben.
* There are a lot of engraved Verre de Soie pieces not signed.

Engravers moved often from one company to another. I talked to one many years ago who had worked at Hawkes, Hoare, Sinclaire, and Eggington.

Although Carder’s Steuben had a cutting and engraving department, he also used “freelance” engravers. These engravers and cutters worked at shops located at their homes. Often you would see these cutters with padded baskets filled with completed objects on their arms going into Steuben. They would then be seen leaving Steuben for home with their baskets filled with Steuben blanks and the orders for how they should be engraved.

I haven’t heard of cutters working for two different companies at the same time. Knowing what I know about the owners of cutting companies, I don’t think they would like this.