(1) MOULDED; (2) COTTON-WHITE; (3) CUT KNOPPED; AND (4) CUT AND MOULDED CAPTAIN GLASSES
Then there is attraction in the historical and social traditions which have gathered around the ware; romance lingers on in the Jacobite glasses, the Williamite glasses, the Georgian glasses, the rummers and groggers engraved and drunk from to celebrate the victories of Nelson or famous elections; and humour resides in many of the relics of the punch-bowl and six-bottle days. To honour particular occasions one’s fine old glasses may come out of the cabinet and be used at table again; I know a collector of “captain glasses” who brings them out for champagne. For decoration or in use old glass has a refined, artistic, aristocratic air.
NEITHER TOO RARE NOR TOO PLENTIFUL
The sound of the past seems to throb in the ring of this frail and dainty ware; at your touch the cry of the bygone seems heard again. Because of fragility, enough of eighteenth-century glass has not lasted on to make it common, and yet so much of it is still extant that a collector’s hunt for it is by no means a hopeless quest. It may still be acquired at reasonable prices from dealers in antiques, and a hunter for it in odd corners, who buys in shillings, not in pounds, may reasonably hope to pick up many fine specimens for next to nothing even yet. Four years ago I bought a fine drawn cordial glass for 2d. Within the past three years I have myself bought a perfect captain glass for 3s. 6d.; within the last year I have bought six punch-lifters for 17s. 6d. in all, uncommon as these bibulous old siphons are. A large Bristol coloured-glass paper-weight may cost you £3 in a dealer’s shop, because three years ago they began to be a “rage,” but within the past two years I have bought a Bristol glass article, equally beautiful in colour and glass-flowers, and much rarer, for 2s. Footless coaching glasses and thistle-shaped fuddling glasses are seldom seen, even on a dealer’s shelves, but I have found one of each, in odd corners, for 6d.
THE TIME TO COLLECT IS NOW
WATERFORD GLASS ENGRAVED AND CUT: NOTE THE FANLIKE EDGING AND THE “STAR” CUT TO EDGE OF BASE; ALSO THE DEEP CUTTING OF THE FLORAL ORNAMENT
Now, if ever, is the time to collect old glass rather cheaply, for already the prices of it are mounting in a remarkable way. Thirty years ago old wine glasses engraved with roses, rosebuds, and butterflies—rose glasses, as they are called—could be bought for half-a-crown apiece or less—dozens of them; this price has multiplied nearly twentyfold. Waterford cut-glass grows more and more dear to buy, from dealers who know it when they possess it—they will soon be selling it as if it were antique silver, at so much per ounce—but only last year I bought in a provincial town a captain glass of this ware for 15s., though £8 was the price asked for one just like it in the West End. Now, if ever, is the time for a beginner to take up this line of collecting; old English and Irish glass will never again be so easy to find at reasonable prices as it is now.