“TRAFALGAR” GLASS: RUMMER ON BALUSTER STEM AND RAISED FOOT; EXAMPLE OF ELABORATE ENGRAVING
The glass collector exercises his sight and applies the test; it enables him to detect a counterfeit, though in shape and general appearance it imitates the genuine antique; it is too whitely crystal, too tintless to be old. Curio-shop windows at Brighton, for instance, are full of frauds in glass, chiefly cut-glass, or glass moulded to resemble cut-glass; but the chalky-white tint betrays and condemns them, and the instructed collector will not be taken in. Also he will recognize genuine Waterford glass by its own tinge of colour, and genuine Cork glass in a similar way; he will see that old Dutch-made glass, when thick, has a smeary, milk-and-watery tint, and when thin has a flashy, meretricious absence of deep tinting: he will learn that old Stourbridge glass was whiter than antique Bristol or Newcastle glass, and sometimes was milky-white; in course of time and practice he will come to be able to “date” and “place” a piece of old glass at sight, as well as instantly to reject a fraud.
The tints of Irish-made glass. Glass made at Waterford, late in the eighteenth century and early in the nineteenth, was a fine product, often exquisitely cut: it is distinguishable in more than one way, but has a characteristic tinge which, once seen, is unmistakable. I cannot find exact words for it, it is not a blue nor a green nor a blackish tint, but is something of all three, and was due to excessive presence of oxide of lead. Nobody has done any research as to Irish-made glass, and people suppose that Cork-made glass resembled the Waterford glass, but that is very unlikely, because each factory mixed according to its own recipe, and also used a different variety of each of the raw materials common to all glass. In point of fact, Cork glass is “duller” than Waterford, and it has quite a different, a pale, almost dun or yellowish, tinge, particularly visible in the thicker parts; a good many lustre-ornaments seem to have been made at Cork. Belfast glass was yellowish, too, if we may judge by the tint of Williamite glasses.
2. THE SOUND OF OLD GLASS
EXAMPLE OF FINE QUALITY ROSE GLASS. COTTON-WHITE SPIRAL. NOTE THE ROSE LEAVES AND STEMS
Perhaps because more lead was used in the “metal” or raw material, but at any rate for some distinctive reason, old English and Irish-made glass has a more musical sound than any made abroad. Flick or flip with your finger-nail, or pinch near your ear, a piece of this old ware, and a vibrant, resonant, and lingering ring is audible. The thinner the part of the glass you flick the more the sound, of course; but something of a ring should come from almost any part of the article. Another way of producing this characteristic sound is to keep on rubbing a wetted finger around the edge of the bowl of a wine glass or finger bowl, till rhythmic vibration is set up, and the sound steals forth. And it is a bell-like, musical note, almost the F sharp or G sharp, or A or B of the 4th octave in a pianoforte keyboard: darkish glass with this resonance is almost sure to be old English or Irish made. Much eighteenth-century Dutch glass is still extant here, and is often mistaken for English; but it need not be: thin or thick, Dutch glass sends out no lingering resonance, long, clear, musical, and true. Dutch glass tinkles when you flip it, but the sound is dead a few seconds after being born. The sound test for old English or Irish glass is, Does it ring with a musical note that throbs, sings, and lingers in a way to delight the ear? The sound of old Dutch, French, Italian, or German glass is cracked, so to speak, though the vessel itself is not; but
O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
are lines which Tennyson might have written to describe the music of old English and Irish glass; too much stress cannot be laid upon this test—the lasting note is the criterion.