Friday, March 25, 2011

Antique dealers, Lisa and Bonnie Ackerman of Orange, California shares her e-mail newsletter which includes a report on the glass meeting two weeks ago in Rancho Bernardo.

A&P E-Bulletin
A Mostly Monthly newsletter of
A&P Collectables
146 N. Glassell Street – Orange, CA 92866
Tues.-Sat. 11-5 (714) 997-1370
https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-P-Collectables/88710792736?ref=ts

Filming in Old Towne -First of all we wanted to give you fair warning! There will be a filming crew down here this week and parking will be even MORE of a challenge than it usually is!

The Plaza is being used as a backdrop for a fictional town of Hallelujah, Tennessee. Therefore you will see banners touting the Hallelujah Racoon Festival, etc, and a cannon in the Plaza Park. On Wednesday they will be filming on South Glassell and on Thursday they will be filming on…you guessed it….North Glassell.

Traffic will be stopped sporadically as they do their filming. Parking will be impacted, too.

So if you want to come down to go shopping, come ahead! Just know that you will have to walk further than usual. (You might park at the Library or behind City Hall. There may also be some room in the Lemon Street lot, too.) If you are coming to pick up a layaway, you can double park while you are in our store behind Mom’s car. Call us at (714)997-1370 to tell us you are here and we will open the back door.

We will be open our usual hours of 11-5 on Thursday.

We’ve been traveling! A week ago Mom and I traveled down to Rancho Bernardo for a joint meeting with the Elegant Glass Club and the Emerson-Eldorado Cut Glass Club.

What an interesting meeting we had with two incredible programs. The first part of the day a gentleman from the Cut Glass Club gave a talk on copper wheel engraving. We thought there were only one shape of wheel, but no! Different shaped wheels yielded different features on glass. What exactly is copper wheel engraving? a copper wheel spinning on a lathe like machine was used to engrave designs, lines, monograms on glass. That part I knew. What I DIDN’T know is that the wheel wasn’t actually the abrasive agent…there was a flux mixture of oil and grit that was dabbed onto the wheel every 20 seconds. And the wheel itself would loose it’s shape, so every 20 minutes the engraver would take a file to the wheel and true-it-up! Add to this the fact that before the turn of the century the machine he was working on was likely foot powered and you have a great respect for this craft!

In this photo you see a picture of a French Dressing Bottle made by the Hawkes Glass Company of Corning, NY. The flowers, lines and words were all hand engraved. Some engraving was later polished with a cork or wooden wheel, changing the engraving from a grayish mark to a clear mark.

The afternoon session was a lovely armchair-tour of Alan and Susan Shovers home in Evansville, Indiana. The Shovers are members of the Carder-Steuben Glass Club, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting them at the annual convention in Corning, New York.

Not only did we see some of the unique pieces of Steuben art glass, but another member of the club who lives in California brought about 30 pieces of his own collection to exhibit some of the different shapes, colors and finishes of Steuben that were made from 1903-1933.

What fun we had meeting new friends and learning even more about some of the priceless works of art our country made at one time! Can’t wait for the next convention in Corning in September! I hope to attend again, Lord Willing.

What’s New? LOTS! No time to tell you more about it today..I want to get this sent off before leaving today. But I promise you another newsletter before the month is out. We have some Easter treats, sets of stemware, lamps, etc….etc…
Hope to see you soon!!! 🙂 Lisa and Bonnie

www.cardersteubenclub.org

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.