Monday, December 19, 2011

Reminder—It’s that time to renew or join the Carder Steuben Club for the year 2012—Go to www.cardersteubenclub.org and under “membership” sign up. Paypal may be used.

This bottle that has been under discussion in the Gazette raises a number of questions and issues:

First, from Tony Topps of Crystal Lake, Illinois

I had the same one , same color , same black lid and reeding , it had a Fry paper label on the bottom , I will try to dig out some pics , it was about 10 years ago , I sold it on eBay and it went to a well known Fry glass collector , he told me the color name. Fry called it golden glow , I think this may be just that , H.C. Grus golden glow jar

Then Lon Knickerbocker of Dansville, New York has some other thoughts on the subject.

Hi Alan,

I have a thought on Mr Bly’s very rare Brownish-Yellow Gold Ruby bath salts jar. I would suggest it is possible that this is a Bristol yellow jar that has been irradiated, this is only a possible theory on my part. Many pieces of glass have gone through process often to mislead collectors into believing they have discovered a rare color or variant of a color.

There are many good articles out there on this process including an article titled “Dumpdiggers, Irradiated Glass, The Amethyst Color of Greed. In this article there is a fruit jar that had been clear and is now a shade of unusual amber. I personally do not recollect a piece of Bristol yellow that i have seen that has been irradiated but i can easily imagine based on what i have seen that a piece of Bristol yellow would appear similar to what Mr. Bly is showing as his new rare color, Brownish-Yellow Gold Ruby. Now keep in mind i have no proof of this but if rare pieces start showing up all over the internet then we would have a problem now wouldn’t we? It will be easy to have pieces tested if one desires, as i said in the beginning this is only a theory.

Lon Knickerbocker

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2012 Carder Steuben Club annual Symposium will be held at The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY from September 20-22, 2012.