New Acquisition of an Art Glass Vase Collection by Influential Artists

New Acquisition of Art Glass by 20th Century Influential Artists

Busby Antiques and Collectibles is always purchasing fine art glass. We recently purchased a collection that had some great pieces by renowned modern artists, including Sam Herman, Charles Lotton, David Smallhouse, and Ed Alexander.

Featured Artists

Samuel "Sam" J. Herman

Sam Herman is a contemporary glass artist, sculptor, and painter and is credited as one of the founders of the Studio Glass movement in Great Britain. He was one of Harvey Littleton's first students and held a few teaching positions in England and Australia; the Royal College of Art, the Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education, and the Jam Factory Workshops in Adelaide. He established a personal studio in London, England (1979-90) and South Australia (1974-79).

Today, Herman has maintained studios in Spain, London, and Gloucestershire and is now represented by Rollo Campbell Fine Art Ltd. View his personal website, here.

Charles Lotton

Charles Lotton is a completely self-taught glass artist. He began sculpting glass in his background with a homemade furnace in 1970, and two years later sold his first glass to Tiffany expert Lillian Nassau, who bought many of his works for the proceeding five years.

Today, Lotton is world-renown for his art designs and styles, such as Multi Flora and Cypriot. View his personal website, here.

David Smallhouse

David Smallhouse has been making quality art glass for Orient & Flume Art Glass Inc. since 1980 after earning a Bachelors of Arts degree in Ancient & Classical History from Chico State, San Diego. He created many popular designs at Orient & Flume, including the "Pilsner" vase, "Two-tone Floral" a signature series, and the "Lapis" in jars, urns, and vases

Smallhouse continues this excellence with a new palette of colors and array of new designs and shapes in his own studio. View his personal website, here.

Ed Alexander

Ed Alexander, aka Ed Seaira, was a glass blower at Orient & Flume Art Glass Inc. for 20 years. He was an expert in Northern California Native American culture, history, art, and spirituality. His interest in Native American culture can be seen in many of his works.

Alexander passed away on March 10, 2010, and he is remembered by his two sons and wife.

Our Collection

The art glass vase collection we acquired includes a wide variety of art styles and designs, but within the collection, we found six gems.

Three vases were crafted by Charles Lotton. One vase comes from the Lava design collection, and the other two are part of the Multi Floral collection. These vases range from 2.8 to 4.8 pounds, and each vase is signed and dated by Charles Lotton.

Two of the vases were crafted by Sam Herman while he was consulting for Val St. Lambert in the early 1990s. Their abstract iridescent designs reflect Herman's revered artistic ability.

The last vase comes from the powerhouse team of David Smallhouse and Ed Alexander. During their stay at Orient & Flume, these two were responsible for many art glass signature series. This vase is numbered 174 out of 250 and has a floral design of a meandering vine supporting pink and white fuchsia blossoms and green leaves.

Bid on these items now

Interested in bidding on one of these vases?

• Charles Lotton Lava Iridescent Art Glass Vase 9 3/4 x 5" 1992
• Charles Lotton Multi Floral Art Glass Vase 10 1/8 x 5" 1985
• Charles Lotton Wide Multi Floral Art Glass Vase 7 7/8 x 8" 1992
• Orient & Flume Floral Art Glass Vase David Smallhouse & Ed Alexander 9" 174/250
• Val St. Lambert Sam Herman Art Glass Vase with Abstract Iridescent Designs 9 x 7"
• Val St. Lambert Sam Herman Art Glass Vase with Abstract Iridescent Design 11 1/2 x 5"

Introducing the Central Florida Antique Buyer's Guide!

Greetings antique hunters!  Over the course of the next year, I'll be documenting all of the hot spots to buy and sell antiques in and around the Orlando area.  I figure, who better to document all of the antique hunting hot spots than somebody who does this full time.  Look for my first posting in the next few weeks.  Thanks and happy hunting!

 

 

Identifying Sterling and Silver Hallmarks

Greetings All!

For this blog posting, I've decided to put a quick reference guide out there for the novice who is not sure whether their silver is real silver (referred to as either Sterling, Continental, or Coin Silver), or Silver Plate (often referred to as Nickle Silver, EPNS, Silver Soldered, EPC Silver on Copper, Alpaca, and of course Silverplate).  Some of these marks can be downright confusing, while others are so obscure you would never realize that they mean an item is silver unless you're an avid collector.  Heck, most dealers don't even know many of these marks unless they specialize in silver.

One quick note: When we speak of Sterling silver, we are talking about silver that is of a specific purity of .925, or  92.5% pure.  This is the silver standard for modern American silver, as well as pretty much all English silver (with the exception of Britannia which is 95.8%, but somewhat scarce).  Many other countries use silver of a purity between 80% and 95%.  For simplicity's sake we'll refer to these as Continental Silver.  Coin silver is typically used to describe antique American silver, typically pre-1860, before we adopted England's Sterling standard.

This is by no means a complete, or even extensive list.  These are just some of the more common (or more tricky) marks that we encounter every day in our buying:

American Sterling Mark for Tiffany & Co



A typical American Coin silver mark. Many pieces of earlier american coin will not be marked with the word "COIN" but will simply have the makers mark stamped in the silver.  Typically a last name, or possibly initials and a last name.

A more modern American Gorham mark, but you will also find some Gorham coin silver out there as well.

An example of an American SILVER PLATE mark.  1881 Rogers is the company name, not the date of manufacture!  They were purchased by Onieda, so you will sometimes see both marks.  



This is a typical Chines Export silver mark. Typically 90% purity, with one or two chop marks and sometimes two or three initials.  You will sometimes see a "90" as well.  Be careful, German silver plate also uses a "90"!  Earlier Chinese Export will use English Pseudo Hallmarks.  Do a quick google search for more info on Pseudo Marks on Chinese Export Silver.

Mark from a piece of Japanese Meiji Period Silver (circa 1890)

Mark from a more modern piece of Chinese Export silver. The use of the word "Silver" is more common in modern Chinese and Asian silver (usually seen on silver post 1940).  As a general rule of thumb, if a piece only says "Silver" there is a decent chance that it is silver.  If it says something like "German Silver", "Brazil Silver" or "Nickle Silver" it is typically some type of alloy and not really silver at all.



A modern Japanese Silver mark. 

A couple of UK silver marks, the top is for Sheffield England, the lower is for Edinburgh, Scotland.





This is a typical Iranian mark. Note the 84, which is a unit of silver measurement referred to as zolotnik, and is was commonly used throughout the Middle East, Persia, and Primarily in Russia.  84 is the equivalent to .875 purity.



 A typical German silver mark (not "German Silver" which not really silver).  The Crown, Half Moon and 800 were used post 1886.  There are thousands of marks used pre-1886.

Well, that's it for tonight.  Again, this just scratches the surface, but its a good place to start.  We'll expand in future blogs!

Regards,
Chad Busby

Introducing the all new BusbyAntiques.com website

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