Sunday, January 15, 2012

Carder Steuben Club cheerleader and Treasurer, Lon Knickerbocker is jumping up and down with excitement.

Today was another good day for the Carder Steuben Club, our new friend Tom Felt (cataloguer with the West Virginia Museum of American Glass of Weston W.V.) became member # 197. I wonder who will be member # 200, will it be you, we hope so.

p.s. Tom Felt is the author of the monograph on Carder Steuben in the 20s (the one that contains all the reprints of ads and trade catalogs) published by the West Virginia Museum of American Glass.

Alison Robb of Warren, Michigan adds some more historic information about Waterford to our cut glass discussion.

Another aside about Waterford:

Ireland was forced to close the original Waterford glass works in 1849 due to the English putting huge tariff charges on Irish glass, leading to further hatred of the English in Ireland.

At the outbreak of WWII, Ireland insisted on staying neutral, and left open their option of providing safe harbor for German submarines in Irish waters.

In response to this threat, the English government promised to repeal these duties, and provide more autonomy for the Irish peoples in return for refusing to allow safe harbor to Germany.

After the war ,the English government actively sought a way to restore the Irish heritage in glassmaking, and sought help from Czech glass makers, until enough Irish lads could be retaught the glass making trade.

The “new” Waterford company ORIGINALLY only cut patterns found in the old pattern books, so it could be “genuine” Waterford crystal, and they re opened, with great fanfare exactly 100 years after they closed, 1949.

I am no fan of Waterford, and firmly believe the best thing they do is advertise, as I too would call it “cut crystal” in only the loosest definition.

In another aside, Steuben, in their early history, did indeed cut a pattern very like OLD WATERFORD” . They provided blanks for Hawkes in their pursuit of Irish Waterford type glass, WHICH IS REALLY HEAVY AND BEAUTIFULLY CUT.

I recently bought a set of 10 very heavy square cut base goblets, cut in a pattern which appears to be identical to Taylor Brothers “Waterford” pattern– Taylor Brothers worked in Corning, and purchased blanks from Steuben, among others, and they are magnificent.

Alison Robb

Speaking of Waterford, John Styler puts in the Scottish point of view.

All this info on the Waterford process is very interesting.

I have over 80 pieces of the Edinbourgh Thistle pattern

and it appears to be finer than the Waterford Colleen;

but the Scots have to out-do the Irish.

Congratulation Lon on the membership, now there has to be

four people out there that enjoy the Gazette and our website

that haven’t come on board, a 200 membership sounds better.

www.cardersteubenclub.org

Any opinions expressed by participants to the Gazette e-mail newsletters are the opinions of the authors and are not endorsed by or the opinions of the Carder Steuben Club.

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