Heard it through the Grapevine

A Goblet Dated 1697?

We’d be gobsmacked to own this

Cheers, from Ralph Finch

Selling December 8 at Gorringes auction house, located in Lewes, England, was:

“A rare documentary Irish wheel engraved lead glass goblet, dated 1697, attributed to Odaccio’s Glasshouse, Dublin. The rounded funnel bowl engraved with numerous “M’’ family member initials within laurel wreaths, possibly for the Martin family, and the inscription “I : PRAY TO GOD BLESS THEM : ALL’’ above a *merese and angular inverted baluster stem, on an incomplete conical foot, 17.5 cm (6.88 inches) high, with a Victorian fitted rosewood & pewter inlaid box. It is from the Andrew Rudebeck collection.

“The foot is broken and large sections are lacking. A museum-style fitted perspex base has been made so that the goblet can be displayed standing up. There are visible striations to the glass bowl and some impurities in the stem.

“See R.J. Charleston, English Glass and the Glass Used in England, where the author references a glass engraver, Joseph Martin living in Fleet Street, Dublin, opposite the Golden Ball, who was the only person employed at the glassworks in Fleet Street employed in the profession, and left to set up his own business in 1735. It is possible that Martin learnt the craft of engraving from a previous generation of his family who engraved the goblet in this lot with the initials of the Martin family members. The evidence that engraving on glass in Dublin preceded 1735 is a drinking glass which bears the roughly engraved inscription Lord Arch Bishop of Dublin 1715, decorated with similar laurel branches to our goblet (see The Earliest Dated Irish Drinking Glass, Dublin, 1715, Catriona Mac Leod, The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 103 (1973). Up to this time this was the earliest known dated piece of Irish glass.

“Similar stem fragments with a merese above an inverted baluster have been found in excavations at Rathfarnham Castle near Dublin dating to the late 17th Century. Colin Brain has undertaken extensive research on glass made in Dublin and has written about sixteen similar stem fragments excavated in the British Isles that share these features. He says: “Fourteen of these were found in excavations in, or near Dublin. That one of the stems was found during the excavation on the glasshouse site strengthens their identification with Odaccio. John Odaccio (Formica) was one was one of three people named in a glass patent for Ireland issued in 1675 and is thought to have operated in Dublin into the 1690s. A similar small wine glass, dated 1680-90, sold by Bonhams, London, in the A.C. Hubbard Collection of Important English and Dutch Glass, Lot 2, sold for £25,000, with closely related engraving of laurel branches and lettering, inscribed “GOD SAVE THE QVEEN’’ which originated from Hall Estate, Barnstaple, Devon, the seat of the Chichester family.

“Interestingly, senior members of the Chichester family held the title of Earl of Donegall, Ireland and the current Parliament House in Dublin is built on the site of the former Chichester House named after Sir Arthur Chichester (1606-75). The former owners of the goblet had a box specially fitted and velvet-lined to house the glass, as the foot of the glass had been broken.”

The goblet was estimated at £1,000 to £1,500, and sold for £9,500 plus a buyer’s premium ($12,566 U.S.)

More about Gorringes (edited): Located at 15 North St., Lewes, UK (http://www. gorringes.co.uk) its “business began in the 1920s. Gorringes has grown and expanded in both infrastructure and reach. Gorringes has auctioned several notable lots and items, including a collection of Jane Austen artifacts sold to the Jane Austen House Museum in 2013. Gorringes has conducted 510 online auctions in its most popular departments — automobillia, books, coins, entertainment memorabilia, medals, textiles, toys, and stamps.

“Among the staff, several are members of the prestigious Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors or have history working with the organization.” (Let’s see anyone on John Pastor’s staff make that claim.)

Editor’s note: For those readers as uneducated as I am, the dictionary says: “Merese definition: (on a stemmed glass) a flat, sharp-edged knop joining the stem to the bowl or foot.”

Heard it through the Grapevine

Antique Bottle Collection?

By Ralph Finch

Well, that’s what the auction house offered Dec. 25 when it listed “Lot 25U: An Antique Bottle Collection with 15 great vintage pieces, est. value $125$150.” Honest, that’s what it said, alongside the image of … cullet in a box?

The auction house, Baker’s of Bohemia, N.Y., added: “Request more information.” I was tempted to request: “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” So, readers, what do you think this “collection” is worth?

Assuming they ship this (rhymes with ship) stuff free, I think it’s worth … Well, the clear soda bottle in the dead center is worth possibly a buck to a 12-year-old beginning collector.

I think the real value of this future cullet is as a really, really, really bad joke.

Consider: If you can buy this vintage trash for $1 and have it sent to, say, Norman Heckler or Jim Hagenbuch, but don’t sign your name. Can you imagine how confused they would be?

If you do it, don’t mention my name, or I’ll likely find coal (at the very least) in next December’s stocking. Janet says I will deserve it.

Read the Small Print

Comments by Ralph Finch

Recently I was looking at an auction house’s listing and noted the “small print,” which stated (word for word): “All descriptions are visual opinions based on the Auction house’s experience and do not warrant as a guarantee. Condition is appropriate to age of the item. The absence of a condition report does not imply that the lot is free from damage and wear. Please review all pictures posted on this listing. We encourage all buyers to request a condition report and/or additional photos prior to bidding on any lot as ALL ITEMS ARE SOLD AS-IS, WHERE IS.”

In other words, a lawyer has apparently freed the auction house from ANY responsibility for anything it is selling.

Have you ever read anything like that with any of the glass sold by the major auction houses?

Nope. And that is one of their great strengths. (Of course, that is one of the reasons that all of the heads of the glass auction houses are going gray — or have no hair at all.)

Dealing with bottle collectors can be a hassle. Many glass collectors want, no demand, that the glass they buy is as perfect if not better than when it was made 150 years ago.

Ask how many of these auction chiefs have had to accept the return of a piece of glass from someone who has taken a 100X microscope to a piece of 200-yearold glass and found an unlisted grain of sand in the bottle.

We are fortunate to be dealing with Pastor, Hagenbuch, Heckler and others who give us faith in who we are dealing with and what we are purchasing.

I know I am pleased with them. I also know what it is to buy something from someone (often on eBay), and when you get it there are major discrepancies with the descriptions.

If You’re Looking for Something Different

For the bottle collector who also “digs” cars, the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) in Baltimore (website: www.avam.org), may just have one up on the other museums: a bottle-covered classic car. Leave it to them to find a new and inspiring use for Bromo Seltzer and Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia bottles.

While the AVAM Museum may not have caviar taste in bottles, its website indicates that it specializes in the “ preservation and display of outsider art.” It is located in Baltimore’s Federal Hill neighborhood at 800 Key Highway. AVAM artists, the museum boasts, include “farmers, housewives, mechanics, the disabled, the homeless, all inspired by the fire within.”