Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Randy Bly philosophizes

We are all here together because we love Steuben. We each have our reasons for being here and how long ago we started. Most likely we all have our favorite piece of glass. Collectively there is a mass of knowledge between all of us that is mind boggling. A few of you wrote in with information on how to remove stoppers. Not you think you knew, but this is how to do it. Dick Stark passed down first hand information on the spelling of Sinclaire that I was guilty of. He had learned that from his own same mistake. How cool is that? Estelle Sinclaire Farrar reached out and touched me without even being here. Many of you have had the chance to actually sit with Carder. What we have…all of us, is first hand information.

I looked over my shoulder the other day and I didn’t see any 20 year olds in the business. It is about preserving the knowledge. There has been a wealth of information that has come forward through the Club Site and the Gazette. This information is being preserved. Some might say information is boring…show me the glass. See, we each like something different.

My favorite part is the hunt. It has always been about discovery and hunting and identifying the approximate 44 colors used in Steuben’s Transparent Colored Crystal. I hunt them. I buy them, and then it is over for me. Then I sell them. I want to know them all. Unfortunately that means I am the guy with the safari hat on beating the bushes and venturing way too far out on thin ice. It is good someone in the club has taken that position. As a result it is real easy for me to make a mistake. It is uncharted territory with a very tattered map. You don’t really find much out there but that is just where I enjoy spending my time. So far, as we know, no mistakes have been printed to the Gazette. I have bounced some of my wild theories off a lot of you through private emails and you either say it won’t fly or say lets look a little further. If it flies for a while we take it to press and open it up for everybody to help. Coming up with new colors and new glass types might look like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It is not. It is years of dedicated research. With the internet we have the ability to transfer information at an astonishing rate from the best of the best. How powerful is that? That’s us, the Steuben nuts. The field of Steuben is still filled with mystery and there will be more to surface mark my word. Marshall and I just tossed some ideas back and forth about my new project the color Celadon. This is how it starts and then if we are lucky about 2 years later we have it. These color projects have ranged from a couple of years to thirty five years for me. We should have a picture of Window Glass/ Pale Green on the club site now and have leads on two more colors. Russian Amber is expanded for us now. Dark Topaz(colored with uranium) in the form of David Chadwick-Brown’s Mermaid piece has come to light. Color is a powerful Steuben identification tool.

I have photo’s of my Carder Signed Topaz Vase with Amethyst Controlled Cintra Stripes that I sent 6 years ago to the club site for record. I can finally post it on the Gazette because I found out two months ago Beth Shaut has sold 3 pieces of this unknown Steuben glass type. She said she believed it used to have a name Carder called it but was in fear the name had now been lost. First hand information. We have got to get it down on record. It is our job before first hand information is lost to the new generation. That was the sparkle I saw in Bob Rockwell’s eye when I met him at 20 years old and we discussed his unidentified Lace Glass Vase. It was him seeing the next generation in action.

I just pray we got some 20 year olds out there now. Our information has value especially if the field skips a generation. In the future they might be digging through the Gazette to get their info just like Bob Muller digs through his mountain of paper. I can see them now saying….Hey, Look what I found on the supernet from way back in 2010! Run upstairs and get great great grandma’s Steuben perfume bottle. I just found out how to get the stopper out.

On the red. I provided pictures of 5 different pieces of glass. Provided the B&W photo 45 years old. All of these pieces came from different people. Two of them have been in collections for years to include David’s signed plate. Three of the pieces are in a sense signed.

If they were forged there would have been 5 different people forging them at 5 different times from around the world over the last 60 years.

My final question is, why are all 5 on the exact same color and type of glass? Can anyone tell me. The odds of us missing Cardinal Red is a couple of hundred to one.

The odds of all 5 of these fakes ending up on the exact same type and color of glass is well beyond 100,000 to one.

We have to show all 5 pieces are fake or reconsider this. If for some miracle we can explain why they all ended up on identical glass and all used to fake exclusively Steuben then any misleading or confusion can easily be cleared up by telling the whole story. It will be beneficial to everyone either way.

I am presently on the road working from the car.In the next post I will tell the rest of the story of what I have on what I believe to be 5 pieces of Steuben red. Let’s see if we can shoot it down together or if we need to look further.

Rande Bly

Any opinions expressed by participants to the Gazette are the opinions of the authors and are not endorsed by or the opinions of the Carder Steuben Club