David Goldstein & Dick Stark share their discussions on the search for the provenance on the silver overlay piece CMoG would like to acquire. Then Dick Weerts weighs in on the misuse of provenance. An interesting Sunday morning set of discussions.
Dick Stark and I had a long telcon this morning about various pieces of glass but a lot of our discussion centered on the Silver Overlay Vase.

Dick Stark made a very interesting observation that I want to share with you. Would Frederick Carder have given John Northwood a piece that he had not made? Given what I have read about Carder’s (mostly well-deserved) ego, my answer is a definite no.
If Carder made the piece, it would have been while he was at Stevens and Williams. I am not aware of opaque glass that was produced at S&W around 1900. Perhaps he was experimenting with opaque glasses which finally resulted in Tyrian some 20 years later. I should think that Charles Hadjmachmight be able to fill in the blanks on this.
The glass was probably produced in England and sent to the US to have the overlay applied. Its a reasonable hypothesis

Next, Dick Weerts’ provocative piece:
Alan: I have been interested in the informative emails on the piece at Bonham’s, I think the club and emails are an excellent forum for discussions.
These thoughts do NOT apply to any specific pieces that have been discussed, only to the use word “Provenance”.
The way it is used by most auction houses has long bothered me. I looked up the term and found in one source the definition to be:
“Provenance is the origin or source from which something comes, and history of subsequent owners (also known as chain of custody).”
“In North American Archaeology the term “provenience” is sometime used. Some researches use
“provenience” to refer only to the exact location where an artifact was excavated in contrast to “provenance” which includes the artifacts complete documented history.”
My concerns, as a recent collector, are that if a piece of glass is sold as Steuben, the next time it is sold, in today’s world, it has “provenance”, and the next time it is sold it has even better “provenance”, and depending on who sold it even better “provenance”. And yet we really know nothing about the “origin” of the piece or its actual “chain of custody”.
It makes me wonder how much Carder Steuben is still being “”manufactured” today, will be tomorrow, and next year.