MASONIC FIRING GLASS: NOTE THE THICK FOOT
About 1830, the six-bottle men being all dead, and even the three-bottle men becoming rare, the thickness of the stem and the extensiveness of the foot could safely be reduced; the pontil-mark, too, was smaller, and the foot of a glass could be made with a lower instep, so to speak. Therefore a thin stem and a foot not bigger, or smaller, than the top of the bowl, with no pontil-mark, or hardly any, signify that the glass was made during Victoria’s reign or just before it began.
“THUMB” GLASSES
“Thumb” glasses are those in which the external surface of the bowl is pitted with depressions the size of a finger-end, so that the shaking hand of the bibulous might be the less likely to let the glass drop. They are usually tall of bowl and short of stem, but rather big of foot.
THE SQUARE FOOT
Old glasses with thick square bases appear to belong to the end of the eighteenth century, when the “Empire” style was influencing manufacture: often the base is of inferior workmanship to the bowl.
THE FEET OF TUMBLERS
Even the bases of tumblers were made thick, though they were smaller in circumference than the top of the tumbler.