2. THE DRAWN-OUT OR PLAIN ROUND STEM
DRAWN BOWL AND PLAIN ROUND STEM
“Drawn glasses” were made at twice—the bowl and the stem in one, the foot added later. To understand better this meaning of the word “drawn,” imagine a soap-bubble with the extra suds adhering to one part of it, and suppose that the extra suds could be drawn out to make a stem; that was the method used in glass. The plain, round stem resembles a solid cylinder, but it is part of the bowl, in fact it is a continuation of the bowl. The end of the cylinder, around which the foot was welded, made a pontil-lump, and therefore the plain stem glass has either a high instep or a dome foot.
The plain round stems were made stout because of insobriety, though that had begun to lessen when this second type of stem came into vogue. “Tears” are often seen in the plain round stems.
3. THE CORRUGATED ROUND STEM
(1) CORRUGATED STEM AND (2) HOP AND BARLEY GLASSES, THE LATTER SHOWING THE “SILVER SPIRAL”
Stems which are ornamented by outside spirals, or series of small ridges and grooves alternating, are usually old Dutch; but some of them are English, though of inferior quality and ring. The quality is so poor and the make so unsatisfactory that probably they were a “cheap and nasty” contemporary imitation and substitute for glasses adorned with the air spiral, the type which succeed the plain round stem. It is hardly likely that the corrugated stem preceded the air-spiral stem; or, if at all, for more than a few years. With these corrugated stems one expects to find, almost without exception, that the bowl of the glass is shaped like an inverted, incurving, waisted bell.