Sunday, January 16, 2011

Gerald Grube of Redlands, California has a question about shape #2360. He has a dish in this shape number. It’s in Gold Aurene and since Gold Aurene is usually inscribed with a shape number he was able to know the shape number inscribed on the piece. Next, Gerald went to the Club’s website looking for the number. This is what he found.

http://cardersteubenclub.org/shapes/item-view.cfm?RecordID=19751

Note it is identified as “grapefruit”. The pictured piece shows it has an insert. Gerald wrote me to tell me he couldn’t find this shape in the Gardner book. I wrote back and said you can find it under a miscellaneous category at page 210 of Gardner. He wrote back and asked how I could find it so nimbly and quickly. At this point I was looking pretty knowledgeable to find this elusive piece so quickly.

At this point I had to confess. It was quite simple. I merely went to Marshall Ketchum’s book, Frederick Carder’s Steuben Glass, Guide to Shapes, Numbers, Colors, Finishes, and Values, revised second edition. I merely looked in the index for shape 2360. There listed was the page in the Gardner book for the shape number, along with a listing of four sales. One showed the term “grapefruit” and the others were silent on this term. This went to Gerald’s second question. That was do they all have inserts or not. My guess was you could buy it either way, although I really don’t know that. Perhaps someone could supply the answer to that question. I was also able to advise Gerald that this piece wasn’t pictured in any of the major books on Carder since no cross reference was shown. Had it been listed it would have shown up there.

Finally, Gerald asks this question which someone may be able to answer.

I still don’t understand why that shape and item is called a grapefruit form in the club website.

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