Hi Alan,

In my opinion the signature is valid. When Fred Carder signed these he was quite old and he did it to identify the piece as an item that was produced by Steuben. At the time there was very little written about the Carder Steuben. This signature is not to be confused with the earlier Intarsia signatures that were a facsimile of Carder’s signature that was engraved by a professional Steuben engraver. The tool that Carder used was a Dremel grinder that Carder had used to touch up his cast glass pieces. The unfortunate thing is that this was done when he was in his late years and therefore his hand is not so steady and the signature is easily forged today. This has led to many collector’s complaining that he signed anything that people brought him. This is not true as I was with my father when he brought glass objects to be identified and Carder would quickly take out pieces that weren’t his. To be sure he made a few mistakes as we all do as in the case of some Powell Glass Company items that had similiar shapes. Not bad for a person reaching back almost 100 years and 9500 designs. In the Rockwell collection less than 1 percent were errors and even then you had to watch what he wrote for some said “F. Carder S&W” for items that he identified as work he had done for Stevens and Williams.

Bobby Rockwell

Intarsia Signature

Dear Alan,

In answer to the question about the authenticity of the Carder signature on the Decorated Fan vase. It is correct also I see it has a Rockwell gallery sticker on it which could mean that Mr. Rockwell took it to Mr. Carder’s home and he signed it. When Mr. Rockwell was collecting his Steuben pieces he would take finds to Mr. Carder for verification every Thursday evening. Mr. Carder would identify them and tell him about the pieces and sign them especially if they were not signed. He also signed them if they already had the Steuben mark on them. Not all Carder era glass was signed.

Beth Shaut

Sure looks like the ones I’ve seen but maybe a bit neater. Dick Stark

David and Duane,

This one is simple. It is 100% authentic. I have seen it a million times. Recognising signatures is something Mr. Thomas Dimitroff is good at.

To back it up let’s follow the money! An authentic F Carder signature at this point adds approximately $25- $100 to the price. It is a 99% plus chance it is a post-production signature. Carder did not sign these Decorated Gold Aurene pieces as they left the factory.

So…. let’s just say I owned this piece. Would I run the risk of shattering a $1,500 piece of authentic Steuben by forging a signature to gain a $100.00 increase? Not in million years.

What you have is a post-production signature that is 100% authentic and on a good day your piece has just been increased by $100.00 in value! Add 50 bucks for the Rockwell sticker. It is your lucky day!

Carder would give his pieces a good solid whack and say “listen to the ring”, as the owners observed in horror. He wasn’t afraid to sign them when he was 90 years old. I don’t know if he ever broke one signing it but I am certain he declined to ever sign a piece of Mandarine Yellow because he totally understood the composition and characteristics of his glass. Yours is an earlier post-production signature because it shows steadiness of hand.

I would hope to see the value of these post-production signed pieces increase in the future as they are presently grossly undervalued.

Cha-Ching….Good find!.

Rande Bly

Hi Alan,

Responding to David Kingsley’s and Duane Moulton’s query of last week regarding the authenticity of the Carder signature on their Steuben fan vase, I consulted my file of Carder signatures. The attached file showing the signature F. Carder, dated 1885, is from an old Carder sketch book. The similarity between this signature and the one on the vase is striking, and I conclude that they are both from Carder’s hand, though many years apart. Incidentally, Carder seems to have rarely used the initial F except when signing his Steuben glass, preferring to use Fredk or Fred’k instead.

Ed Bush