In the Carder Steuben factory records “RP” stands for the color “Royal Purple” Rande Bly of Birmingham, Alabama follows up with the series the Gazette had on striped glass, which Rande started.

Thank you Bob Bjork for the wonderful examples of this striped glass. I was wondering when someone would pull the Royal Purple piece with white stripes into this discussion. I can see on some of the striped pieces the stripes are quite pronounced whereas on my Cintra striped piece when you run your finger across the stripe you can barely feel the Cintra stripe between the two layers of Topaz. Carder finally had success at trapping a Cintra design between two layers of glass and at the same time kept it as thin as 1/16th of an inch in most areas. Not bad for three layers of glass!

His next step was to see if he could make the trapped design more intricate. Maybe he could pick up a flower pattern perhaps? It seems simple enough? Just lay out the powdered Cintra layer in the shape of a flower on the marver and pick it up with the gather. This apparently was not as simple as it sounds. Gardner shows the vase with the Cintra bird in plate XVII. He even glued the Cintra powder to paper to keep it from moving around and then burned the paper off later. If he keeps going at this rate he is going to invent Intarsia.

Remember the Experimental Intarsia we talked about 4 months back? The 1917 Cintra method type? It is out there somewhere. We are told it even hit production in 1920-1921. We are not sure what it looks like. If you look in Gardner in the notes on page 358 last paragraph Carder himself is reported describing this glass.” Fragments of glass, cut out to a pattern”. We know the design is more complicated than stripes. Hey but all good inventions start somewhere.

You might ask why do I even concern myself with the unknowns? Why do I picture them in my head before I see them? Well I do have a reason. Because that day I am at the Antique show standing in front of a piece of glass that is screaming Carder but is like nothing I have ever seen before I don’t want to miss it. In my minds eye it is Topaz or French Blue, or even Clear Crystal with this Amethyst Cintra flower, beginning to distort from the blowing, neatly trapped between the two layers of glass at 1/16th of an inch. Nothing like it in any of the books. The shape says Carder. Feels good when you hold it. That day, I don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to walk away saying to myself must be European because Carder never…..

If I had that frame of mind I would have missed the Carder signed, delightful Topaz vase with trapped Cintra stripes we just had the pleasure of viewing. David Chadwick-Brown bought his Teal Jade striped piece many years ago long before this type of glass came to light. He could have said to himself paper label. Easy to transfer. I could have said on my piece Carder post production signature. Easy to forge.

This is part of what makes us a club. Some are explorers vulnerable to risk Some are the rock of stability, never venturing to chance. The rest find their spot in between. It takes all to work the best. As I see it we are about out of authors information. Bob Muller will have some cool stuff for us soon. Basically it is down to us as the club to see if we can come up with anything. Somehow things are getting away from us. Like Beth said. This striped glass might have had a name. I have about 9 total greens of which about 4 I am trying to tie the Steuben color names to. How did that ever get away from us? Hopefully they are not lost beyond recovery. If we don’t get it I don’t see how the next generation will. A lot of history and a ton of wealth has been recorded in this Gazette. First hand information.

What shall our next book be on? Well of course I would answer color. I would like to see a book with all the approximate 44 colors Steuben made in Transparent Colored Crystal. All from the same photo studio with a picture of a piece in each color with accompanying color groupings like all the greens, all the blues, etc. Maybe we could partner up with a group effort for those that might be interested?

Rande Bly