In the earlier days of Sterling Overlay, the substance used to attract silver was an off-white but had a fault: once the silver had cured and was finished, the silver would tarnish and the “back side” or side looking thru the glass was ugly…… tarnished & very “dirty” looking.

That’s where Alvin Silver Co. came in: a patent for a substance that suppressed the tarnishing process on the back side: the resulting “whitish” look was much more pleasing and quickly became the norm.

Many, Many Rookwood pieces were overlaid with Sterling. A very large number of Loetz pieces were imported to the US and overlaid here.

Essentially the same process was used. However, many porcelains and potteries used a combination of metals, copper, silver plate, etc……

Willson Craigie

MORE DAVE WINFIELD PICTURES OF SILVER OVERLAY

Carol Ketchum writes in about silver overlay

Hi Alan!

It would be helpful with the Winfield (and other) pix appearing on the website to have the ones which are Steuben and not Steuben identified. I can see people assuming because it’s shown on the website it’s Steuben unless it is clearly identified as not being so.

Carol, point well taken. Most of these are not Steuben blanks. It is often hard to know, unless the shape is distinctively Carder’s. Dave Winfield was suggesting the audience try and identify them when they can. He did identify the last bottle pictured above as Loetz. There are presently 17 vessels on the Carder Club website that are silver overlay and can be identified by shape as Carder. If we know a piece is Steuben we’ll label it as such; otherwise, these are just pretty pictures waiting to be identified. More of Dave Winfield’s pictures to follow.

2013 Carder Steuben Club annual Symposium will be held at The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY from September 19-21, 2013. The festivities will begin with Frederick Carder’s 150th birthday celebration on the evening of September 18, 2013.

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