Wednesday, January 19, 2011

From Tom Dimitroff

Hi,

Another photo from my files. This one is from an old friend of mine who, unfortunately, is no longer with us. His name was Darrah L. Roberts. Darrah was a wonderful collector of Art Glass Shades. I was a shade collector also. Once we met we became friends. When I first met him and before we became real friends I called him one day and his wife answered pleasantly as always. I asked for Darrah. She said just a moment, he’s out back, I’ll get him. The moment turned to five minutes, then 10, then 15. When he finally picked up the phone he apologized for the wait and explained he had been in the back field plowing. Well, I learned my new friend was a farmer.

Well, Darrah did more than collect, he also wrote and published books about art glass shades. His first was Art Glass Shades in 1968. It is a 31 page soft cover, plastic-ring bound book. 14 of those pages are full color photos of shades. His next book, Collecting Art Nouveau Shades was a much larger challenge. It is hardcover and has 120 pages. It appeared in 1972. It has both colored and black-and-white photos. Then in 1978, he published Price Guide for Art Glass Shades and Collecting Art Nouveau Shades. It was soft cover and had about ten pages. I believe that at least one – better all – should be in every Steuben collector’s library. They seem to appear quite often on ebay at various prices.

Well, all of this was prompted by my coming upon this photo Darrah sent me one day. He was a great guy, a wonderful collector and, I imagine, a darn good farmer.

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