Thanks for the Article

from David Donaldson of Orlando

Good morning Beth Hylen,

Thanks so much for letting us read your article on the in depth processes which create the lovely amethyst and purple colors found in the glass left to the great outdoors. As a young child I recall driving across Montana with my Father and seeing the telephone pole insulators which ranged in colors from coke bottles, pure white, and of course purple. Many insulators were missing, so possibly the collectors with pole climbing abilities had already been there.

Thanks again!

Another Resource–Additional Information

Steuben Seventy Years of American Glassmaking by Paul N. Perrot, Paul V. Gardner and James S. Plaut

p. 44

Moss agate pieces may have the same form but are never duplicates, as the powdered glass inclusions never produce exactly the same pattern. All Steuben Moss agate is rare, but, as the majority of these pieces are predominantly in shades of red, brown, and yellow, the blue matrix of this vase (picture in text) with its variegated blue, purple, black, and green shadings indicates a most unusual and perhaps unique piece. In Carder’s unpublished manuscript “Glass and Glassmaking as I Know It” (1920) he says: “In the case of Moss Agate, it is then crackled on the inside by inserting a tube of brass or iron perforated with fine holes and connected to a water supply. This must be done quickly and the surplus waster emptied out of the vase or other object and then reheated in the glory hole so that the cracks will not go too far through the walls.” This reheating unites the shattered pieces perfectly but leaves the attractive netlike crackle pattern.