So there's little me, originally trained as a graphic designer with cut and paste - that's when you actually cut photoproduced typesetting out and pasted it down with cowgum onto artboard, and you drew lines with rotring pens and got ink on your fingers....then some fool came up with computers an the world has gone crazy eve since....
So now I just bottle deal and scrape a living, but I use a laptop, learnt Quark and Indesign, operate a website ( www.earlyglass.com - in case you hadn't come across it before), write VERY occasionally a blog, spend hours a day on ebay and various bottle forums, but that's STILL not enough, now I am supposed to walk around with my head stuck in a smart phone walking into lampost and ignoring people trying to make conversation wit me, checking my facebook status and according to the latest successful business advice advertising www.earlyglass.com via facebook and the various bottle interest groups on there. I gotta "network" and "like" everything and everybody on Facebook and twitter if I want to create more business these days.......and....and...
....Yes. Sorry, you can see I'm suffering from "Blue Monday" the latest fashionable disease for 2014. BUT...new year, new resolutions...so determined effort by yours truly to network everywhere and get this thing buzzing a bit, and maybe even earn some living money from this....
A fascinating diamond inscribed c1685 onion"G. Lloyd". Can't remember seeing a full name scribed on such an early bottle before, and Welsh too
So where do we go from here? What news? What snippets of fascinating info? What super interesting bits of earlyglass floating about out there this new year? Well, bought a couple excellent bottles and a bit o' early stoneware already, but can't say much more about those for a week or two. A couple late shaft and globes on ebay, one c1675 in America described as an onion, but it didn't take too long to get around the grapevine and went to an acceptable price but still cheapish for the greater market, and another nicely iridescent c1670 with a hole in the neck that would restore superbly well, and was really tempting to me. But, funds aren't limitless and I've already raided the coffers too much this month. Bunches of the sorely missed Chris Mortimer's massive collection of sealed cylinders keep trickling onto the market via BBR and proving that even although the common examples don't fly they are still selling out, and anything out of the ordinary is doing well. Once this huge and famous collection has dissipated, I think we will see future examples starting to hit new price levels, so get them cheap while you can!...
A super little gloriously tigerglazed and very drunk wine crug c1550. I love this little jug. Totally virgi, not been messd around with like 95% of saltglaze you see now. Some minor nibbling and touchmarks but honest as the day is long...
Will this be the year of the long awaited boost for early glass - David Burton's multi volume "Bible" of earlyglass and seals...including descriptions and attributions for almost every known seal worldwide. The hobby has been waiting for this for 5 years or more. It will certainly herald a renewed interest in seals for the average collector and quite likely bring in some big guns too. Fortunately earlyglass has enough range to please everybody and every pocket.
Talking of which, some really attractive damaged items have come onto the market recently, which represent excellent value for money for the budget collector. If they display well ten who cares that age has touched them. Providing the cost is te fraction of the mint price, which it still is....but this area has ironically seen the greatest rise in value and popularity. I now have more people asking me to find them a damaged shaft and globe than are asking me for a mint one.... Here's a good example of what I mean...
A super little triangle initialled mini onion dated 1707, it has some cracks, but on the collection shelf and even in the hand, you don't see them. Price for mint one? £6000-£8000?, price for this one - £1200...'nuff said....:)
So what else can we expound? Oh yeah, how the Royal Mail can take your parcel with a valuable c1700 onion bottle in it for which you have paid £30+ for Airsure delivery to America, and because the bottle is wreck found and contains some sea water inside, they decree that it has unidentifiable contents, so might be alchohol, so will be inflammable and a danger to aircraft so they decide they can destroy this valuable antique, AND YOU CANNOT DO A THING ABOUT IT!!!! They can't be bothered to return your property, they can just steal it and commit historical vandalism, and they couldn't even be bothered to find out WHAT was inside, so it might have been perfectly harmless seawater, with perhaps. Not a good end to the year....but I'm trying to put that behind me.....
See you all next time?.........
Mark
