The Gazelle Gazette
The Newsletter of the Carder Steuben Club
Winter 2002 Volume 2 Number 1

In this issue:
1. Welcome to the Newsletter
2. Our Website
3. Notes from the 2002 Symposium:
I Nature of Frederick Carder’s Work –
Tom Dimitroff
II Steuben Colors – Mark Buffa
III Your Favorite Piece – Highlights
IV Collector’s Choice – Bob Bernstein and Alan Shovers
V Web Site Line Drawings Project – Jim Barlow
VI Photographing Glass – Nick Williams (CMOG Photographer)
VII Identification Clinic Highlights
VIII Club Business
A. Club Dinners – Highlights
B. Election of Club Directors
C. Member Activities
D. Other Club Business
4. Special article – Uranium in Carder Steuben Glass – Ed Bush
5. Great Finds & Rarities
6. Contact Us

I Welcome to the Newsletter
We are pleased to present this first issue of Volume 2 (2002) of the Carder Steuben Club newsletter, The Gazelle Gazette. The title, The Gazelle Gazette, has been selected in response to the adoption by the Club of the Carder Gazelle as its official symbol.

The Newsletter results from the collaboration of several Club members. It is edited by Vivienne Richards and Mark Ockwell, who acknowledges the help of the following Club Members who have given their time in the following ways:

Ed Bush for contributing the special article on Uranium in Carder Steuben Glass.

Karen Ohland for reviewing the text of the newsletter

Mark Buffa for approving the final edition and distributing it to our members.

The Gazelle Gazette is a means of disseminating information within the Club and to others via the Website edition. We hope that Club members will help our Newsletter become a forum for the presentation of ideas, opinions and technical information related to Carder Steuben glass.

We welcome your ideas for future newsletter topics. It is input from the Club membership that will enable us to produce newsletters that are interesting and relevant.

Topic suggestions need not be related to Club matters. We welcome questions and especially articles on specific Carder Steuben items, historical issues or technical matters (such as manufacturing techniques, reproductions, authentication, preservation, etc.).

Newsletter comments, articles or suggestions can be submitted to:
Vivienne Richards: vrichards@sympatico.ca
Mark Ockwell: anikracing@yahoo.com
Articles should be in WordPerfect or MS Word formats.

2. Our Website – www.CarderSteubenClub.com
The Club’s Webmaster Jim Barlow continues to amaze us with the evolution of the Club Website. It is an important task since the Website is the Club’s public face. It will help attract new Carder Steuben collectors and serve to educate and inform current collectors. To date, over 3400 visitors have accessed the site and 53 have signed the guest book.

The most significant addition to the site in the past 12 months is Jim’s line drawing project. For details, see the additional description below under Notes from the 2002 symposium – Website Line Drawings Project. This is a visionary undertaking, the success of which requires input from Club members. Members are urged to help out by supplying photos of their pieces for use on the site. Jim cannot use photos from Ebay or other published sources since these are copyrighted. Please see the site for details of how you can help or contact Jim directly at the Webmaster’s address at the very bottom of the newsletter.

3. Notes from the 2002 Symposium

Our Symposia are held in Corning, New York, on the closest weekend to Frederick Carder’s birthday, September 18. The 2002 Symposium of the Carder Steuben Club was held at the Coming Radisson Hotel on September 13 and 14.

The Symposium was organized by our out-going president Dick Bright with assistance from the Board Members. Special thanks must go to Dick and Kyle for hosting the pizza party at their elegant home, now a Bed and Breakfast. Thanks also to Mark Buffa and Jim Barlow for supplying the beautiful table centerpieces of Carder Steuben glass and floral decorations which they brought from Detroit for the Black Tie dinner on Saturday night.

I Nature of Frederick Carder’s Work – Tom Dimitroff

Tom Dimitroff entertained and educated us all about Carder Steuben with flair. He noted that Mr. Carder was born on September 18, 1863 at the time of the Civil War and died on December 10, 1963 after seeing the first men in space. He successfully adapted his glass designs to Victorian, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco and into early Moderne, while maintaining the Arts and Crafts ideal of hand craftsmanship.

Tom emphasized that the line drawings available in Gardner’s book are very accurate. If a piece matches a line drawing, it likely is Steuben; if it is close but not a match, it probably is not Steuben. Signatures are quite variable and there are many fakes these days. It is wise to study the forms, shapes and colors of Carder Steuben glass without placing absolute reliance upon the signature.

The themes in Carder Steuben glass are as follows:

Color
Historicism – in motifs and shapes
Classicism – balance and symmetry in design
Eclecticism – allowed design adaptation to different styles in different eras
Themes from nature – floral forms; plant and animal motifs
Quality
Hand craftsmanship
Experimentation – a can-do attitude
The artist as businessman

II Steuben Colors – Mark Buffa
Mark Buffa presented a fascinating discussion of colors in Carder Steuben glass which was based on his preliminary evaluation of over 3000 pieces of company documentation in the Rakow Library. Examples of odd and unusual colors were available to observe and touch in Mark’s large display of Carder Steuben pieces.

Mark presented the various identified colors within the categories of purple, blue, green, yellow, amber and red, but he emphasized that there was a huge range of variations with undoubtedly, some still unidentified colors. There is also the dilemma of color names, for example the early records do not use the term “amethyst” but rather royal purple and “cobalt” was used for blue aurene.

III Your Favorite Piece – Highlights

Several members took the floor to show off their favorite pieces of Carder Steuben. This was a fun event which brought forward some outstanding pieces such as Barbara’s intarsia bowl and heliotrope darner, David’s #6497 figural centerpiece, Jim’s black and alabaster sherbet set, and Alan’s two (YES TWO OF THEM!) rouge flambe pieces. Dwight alarmed us by bringing his favorite piece, a Durand! But then appeased us by showing a stunning decorated green aurene vase. Beth showed her beautiful twist optic blue aurene vase which she got as a dividend for working in the Rockwell shop – ahh! Such a job! Brent showed an experimental plaque that he and co-workers at Coming Glass had made.

Other members told their “fabulous find” stories. Lon showed his gorgeous $35 ACB mirror black vase and Vivienne showed her martini glass acquired for one Canadian dollar.

IV Collector’s Choice – Bob Bernstein and Alan Shovers

Bob Bernstein brought his entire 200 piece candlestick collection plus other fine pieces with him from Michigan to delight and astound us. Bob is a dedicated Carder Steuben collector but he also showed some fine pieces by other makers including Sinclaire, Pairpoint, and Hawkes. The Club sincerely thanks Bob and his wife for going to the trouble to pack, unpack and pack again this marvelous collection so that we could all enjoy it.

Alan Shovers presented a slide show of his collection of over 250 Carder Steuben pieces many of which are museum quality. Alan’s presentation was not only enjoyable for the magnificent and very rare Steuben pieces, but also for the thoughtful and gracious way the pieces were lit and exhibited in his and Susan’s home. Alan also handed out reprints of an article on his collection in Evansville Living Magazine of July / August 2002.

V Web Site Line Drawings Project – Jim Barlow

Our Webmaster, Jim Barlow, unveiled the Website Line Drawings Project for the first time at the symposium, although he has already spent some 7500 hours working on it. The template for the project is up on the site for folks to examine. The aim of the project is to create an online data base for current and future collectors that will enhance the collecting experience of Carder Steuben. The Website will complement the line drawings supplied in the Gardner reference book, and will be a useful adjunct also to the Dimitroff and Ketchum books on Carder Steuben.

Since the Carder Steuben line drawings published in Gardner are copyright, we cannot use them on the site. But the long-term collective efforts of our members in supplying photos of actual examples of Carder Steuben for each of the line drawings will over time fill the empty picture slots to provide a comprehensive pictorial database of the line drawings of Frederick Carder. Jim also intends to include multiple photos as pop-ups for the popular Steuben shapes to illustrate the variety of colors, sizes and decoration that were available.

Jim’s hope is that as time passes, this database will grow and change along with the collectors who help to build it. Jim looks forward to any and all suggestions and critiques as this project moves forward. Any addition you can make to this never-ending project will be appreciated. Contact Jim at: Webmaster@CarderSteubenClub.com

VI Photographing Glass – Nick Williams (CMOG Photographer)

Given the need for photos for Jim’s Website project, Nick Williams’ presentation on how to photograph your glass collection was timely indeed. Nick is a photographer for the Corning Museum of Glass and generously shared some professional secrets with us non-professionals. Nick’s slides on how lighting affects photograph quality were particularly interesting. A black rayon acetate velvet backed with other black material to totally exclude light, can show your Carder glassware to best advantage in photos. Engraved clear glass needs a light background and carefully placed light boards.

VII Identification Clinic Highlights

Always a favorite, the ID clinic did not disappoint. The intrepid identifiers included David Goldstein, Louise Luther from the Antiques Roadshow, Mark Buffa, Beth Shaut and Bobby Rockwell. As usual, we learned more from the “not really Steuben but close” pieces, including a contemporary blue aurene with fake signature, Fry threaded and bubbled glass, and Murano jade, among lots of other contenders. A couple of pieces in citron and Verre de soie were pronounced real Steuben, to the delight of their hopeful owners.

VIII Club Business

A Club Dinners – Highlights

Our socializing in the evenings included a Pizza party with live entertainment at Dick and Kyle’s house on Thursday night, dinner on Friday night listening to Mr. Rockwell’s entertaining stories of his friendship with Mr. Carder, and our black tie dinner and auction on Saturday night.

The auction is much anticipated as a fun event and an opportunity to pick up reasonably priced Steuben. The auction is also an important fund raiser for the Club and we thank those who donated items. Some of the auction stars included a blue aurene vase, beautiful perfumes in gold aurene and engraved crystal, a gold ruby cut to clear bowl in the thistle pattern, a cluthra bowl, aurene and Verre de soie salts, a Madigan reference book and a set of Steuben crystal handled cutlery graciously donated by Louise Luther.

B Election of Club Directors

An election of the directors for 2002 was held during the Club business luncheon on Friday. A summary of the nominees and the election results are as follows. Positions for which only one person was nominated are shown as Acclaimed:

President: MarkBuffa Acclaimed

Vice President:
Marshall Ketchum Nominated
David Goldstein Elected

Secretary:
Beth Shaut Nominated
Ruth DeLorraine Elected

Treasurer:
Beth Shaut Nominated
Albert Bradtke Elected

Web Master:
Jim Barlow Acclaimed

We thanked out-going President, Dick Bright, for his work in the first year of our Club and for making the 2002 Symposium such a success. Dick declined a second term.

We are fortunate to have Mark Buffa for our second President. Mark has shown great enthusiasm for the technical aspects of Carder Steuben glass. He has an outstanding collection and has worked tirelessly to bring most of it to Corning to show us all at one time or another. Mark has contributed greatly to the success of our first two Club symposia with presentations, displays and in preparing Steuben table centerpieces. Please support Mark in his efforts to move the Club forward.

Club membership currently stands at 101 of who 76 attended the 2002 Symposium. This shows great interest, especially since flights in the East were much reduced in the wake of the September 11 anniversary.

C Member Activities

Marshall Ketchum has completed the Carder Steuben glass valuation project which he presented to club members last symposium. It has been published and is available from Schiffer Books. Using published line drawing numbers and reference photographs in the Gardner and Dimitroff books with the addition of historical auction sale prices for individual pieces, Marshall has produced a complete valuation summary for the range of Carder Steuben glassware. Marshall’s book is a very useful adjunct to the Gardner and Dimitroff books and will complement our new website line drawing project.

Tom Dimitroff, in his capacity as Honorary Curator for the Rockwell Museum Carder Steuben glass collection, has been responsible for the installation and maintenance of two collections of Carder Steuben glass in Corning. One exhibit has been installed in several display windows along Market Street and the second is situated in Building B of the Corning Museum of Glass. The Market Street exhibit covers the major eras of Carder Steuben with some excellent representative pieces of Frederick Carder’s work and is instrumental in bringing Carder Steuben to the attention of the general public. The Corning Museum of Glass exhibit is extensive in its depth and in the number and quality of objects which are on display. Photographs of both exhibits are available on the Club website.

D Other Club Business

A copy of Betty Wahlig’s book on Mr. Rockwell was purchased for each Symposium attendee. Betty did not require the $1000 contribution that the Club offered her last year for her publication.

David Goldstein has filed the Club’s application for non-profit status with the Government. The basis for non-profit designation is the commitment to education of members and the public about Frederick Carder’s Steuben glass.

Past copies of Collector’s Choice books are being offered to members with proceeds split between the Club and the Rockwell Museum. The Museum holds the copyright to these books but David will look into buying the copyright for the Club.

Jim Barlow has three old Carder interview tapes which need to be reworked and transferred to CD for proper archiving. The Board will look into funding this project.

Margaret Rasmussen put forward her proposal for Club support for the Alfred University Paul Vickers Gardner Museum. The Club will look into this and may offer two scholarships in glass studies in the names of Frederick Carder and Paul Vickers Gardner. Margaret and some colleagues have been made honorary Club members due to the contributions her team is making towards educational activities in the glass field.

Al Bradtke presented the financial statement. Some discussion about supporting the installation of awnings on the privately owned building, to help protect the Market Street display of Carder Steuben glass ensued, in connection with spending some more moneys.
Further details of Club business can be requested from our Secretary Ruth DeLorraine.

4. Special article – Uranium in Carder Steuben

Should you drink from your Bristol Yellow goblet? Will it make you glow in the dark?

Since Club member Ed Bush is a scientist, he knows better than the “glow in the dar