Often the stem does not directly join the bottom of the bowl, but has a “neck,” with an outstanding ring of glass or “collar” around the neck; sometimes the collar is double or triple; the neck and collar were often used later, in other than baluster stems. Sometimes the collar is near the foot; sometimes there are two collars. Around some stems a fillet is found; these are very rare.
THE OLDER BALUSTERS
The stouter and lumpier the older the baluster stem, as a rule; after the accession of William and Mary, the baluster stems grew more and more refined and less heavy as the years went on. But baluster-stem glasses are prized by most collectors according to their bigness and lumpiness of outline; the older the better, from this point of view. The massive stems are very handsome; where they touch the bowl the bowl is very thick, and because the stem and pontil-mark were big, the foot is often domed; so that the curves of the bowl, the undulations of the stem, and the domelike or high-instep-like curve of the foot make a matched and pleasant outline for the whole. Almost invariably baluster-stem glasses have folded feet.
COINS IN THE BALUSTER STEMS
Two things may be looked for inside these stems—coins and “tears.” Sometimes one of the swelling-out parts of the baluster stem was large enough to enclose a small silver coin; a coin glass is exceedingly rare and correspondingly valuable, but the date of the coin does not necessarily indicate the date of the glass.
“TEARS” IN THE STEM
PLAIN DRAWN LARGE ALE GLASS, SHOWING “TEAR” IN STEM
Many baluster stems enclose a separate blob or bubble of glass, called a “tear.” It has been thought that this was an accidental feature, due to imperfect mixing of the metal and the presence of air in the molten glass. Obviously, that is an unlikely cause, and in the Diary of Mr. Pepys I have discovered a passage which seems to show how these “tears” in the stem would begin. Writing little more than twenty years before 1689, Pepys refers to the “chymical glasses which break all to dust by breaking off a little end; which is a great mystery to me.” These were called lacrymæ Batavicæ, or “Dutch tears,” and were made by letting drops of molten glass fall into water; hissing, the glass became tearlike in shape, a blob with a long slender tail, and hollow. Probably such as these were the “tears” which appear as ornaments within the old drinking-glass stems, distinctly visible and separate from the rest of the glass in the stem, though of the same tinge and quality of material. The name “tear” is to this extent a misnomer, that nearly always the “tear” is bigger at the top than the bottom; whereas a tear proper swells out more the lower it slips on the cheek. But I own a baluster-stem glass in which the lower part of the “tear” is the bigger, and in some such glasses the “tear” swells out or in to match the shape of the stem. Sometimes three or five or more very small “tears” appear in one of the bulbs.