Old New England Glassware in the Home - Part Twenty-Three - "Be That Way"

Old New England Glassware in the Home

Part Twenty-Three

"Be That Way"

            Now that I have established... ... I apply... from my very direct contact... as an antiquarian picker both ‘in the houses’ and ‘in the market place’... the ‘won’t pay’... hidden feature... of... old New England glassware... in the (New England) home.  It is a prominent feature.  It is a hidden feature.  It is a horribly real feature... of old New England glassware.

            It is the “nasty crime”

            If one is an “I care”.

            It is there, flawlessly... including “perfect condition; no chips, cracks or further damage... WITHIN the decadent... decline... of the design... of glassware... and

            The... user... of

            Glassware

            In the home of the

            Old New England... glassware.

            “I don’t think that I really want

            It to be that way.” you say?

            And begin a ‘rescue mission’?

            As if I am calling nine, one, one here myself?

            “Cesspool.” (soak pit)

            I say.

            One may see them from the highway

            While going sixty-five

            Outside of Exeter (NH); cesspools.  The old New England glassware

            That is there (the Exeter area)

            Everywhere...

            Is very hard to ‘see’ ‘from the highway’.

            Perhaps, at this highway vantage cesspool passing,

One is drinking from a ‘wax’ ‘coated’ ‘paper’

            (Cup... glass?) with a plastic ‘lid’

            and plastic

            straw... set in the New England SUV plastic ‘cup’ ‘holder’?

            Or did one just pull a little plastic strip ‘back’ to

            Make a ‘sip hole’ for

            One’s lips?

            “I don’t think I really want it to be that way.”

            Ok.

            At the center of the intersection of the trails of destiny of old New England glassware in the home

            We stand.

            The apex is our footing.  The ‘it’:  Perfection created by Yankee design innovation and Yankee quality standard briefly (1830-1860 with prime time being 1835-1850)... the “it”.  I have touched on numerous hallmarks... from the polished pontil to the innovation of form to the ... no I have not really harped about the patterns much.  Have I.

            I won’t.

            The ‘early ones’; the classic EAPG patterns scream at the knowing eye. One ‘finds them out’ after hearing wording like ‘horn of plenty’, ‘New England pineapple’, ‘buckle’, ‘cable’, ‘Sandwich star’, ‘sawtooth’.

            They are all ‘Empire Style’.  Rarely do I hear a notice of that.  No.  But they are very eloquent ‘Empire Style’.  Even ‘magnet and grape’.  “Ha, ha; isn’t THAT a funny pattern”.

            IT IS NOT so funny when one ‘discovers’ that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had a very... very-very... carefully made (and hidden marked “MMA”) ‘their copy’ (Roman [therefore ‘Empire Style’] helmet style [design form] ‘pedestal base’ ‘creamer’) ‘in magnet and grape pattern’.

            “I don’t think I really want it to be that way?”

            “How do you tell it’s that way (a Roman helmet)?”

            Turn it up-side-down to ‘see’ the ‘helmet’ ... like the Roman soldiers wore.

            “Timeless”

            “Design”.

            The ‘Met’ has made ‘other’; ‘diamond thumbprint’ for example and... et al... ‘glassware’

            Too.

            The ‘Sandwich Museum’ (marked “SM”) has too.

            “Did they?”

            No... most visiting the gift shops did not

            “Buy one” (“won’t pay”).  Actually most ‘didn’t see that’ “there”.

            They still don’t and I am the only one I ever ‘see’ in the secondary market (“used glassware”) that

            Cares.

            That’s how I know that ‘even that’ (the MET magnet & grape helmet creamer) is ‘actually scarce’.

            Don’t tell me your gonna start to care.  I know

            ‘It’ will still be sitting there;

            In the thrift store.

            You ‘won’t pay’...

            Should you happen to ‘see it’.

            And you probably won’t (see it).

            Once one is self-imbued of the ‘early patterns’ and ‘forms’ and

            Your lethal:

            Forty feet away is my first spot and from there on it’s just

            ‘Confirmation’ of ‘what should be there’ while surrounded

            by “no one knows” and

            “No one cares”

            All the little precious old New England Yankee quality hallmarks are ALWAYS ‘there’ so I am just-only-always looking over ‘what I know is there’.

            Dining room cupboard bottoms, attic boxes, garage sale piles, church fair table tops, thrift stores shelves and

            The stuff is everywhere.

            In... ‘only in’... New England.

            It is always this same supreme superior quality.  EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF IT.

            The pattern design is superior, the molding is superior.  The glass metal is SUPREME “ice clear” “brittle” “FLINT”.  The weight (heft).  The balance.  The form; unbelievably complex BALANCE.

            “LIKE NO ONE MAKES THAT”.  Now.

            So:  Forty feet away.

            I see it.

            You know what else I see... ‘at forty’:  I see ... ‘not it’.  “CLOSE” but... ah...

            The decline had set in.

            First came ‘abundant’ ‘patterns’ shifting from global design style influence inclusion to...

            “Cute”.

            It (cute) came fast... on the train (in fact) at night.  It (EAPG) was ‘downtown’ in the ‘store window’ for sale ...the next day.  “SHE LIKED IT”.  Of course she’d never seen it before and never expected it to be

            “That cheap”.

            “And ‘pretty’ (cute)

            (The pattern).

            And the (glass) metal ‘is not that good’.  And the ‘finish’ “isn’t the same” and the... Yeah:  It was purposely made for that market that way.

            “They’ll never know the difference”.  If ever the wooden nutmeg of Yankee design could be explored to a perfect of the design of THAT (‘wooden nutmeg’ peddler grade ‘trade goods’)... GLASSWARE accommodated “THAT” Yankee notion.  Especially in the sunlight of the store window or in the hand of the farm yard loaded peddler’s cart.  With ‘no standard for comparison’ ‘around’ or ‘known about’... that glassware “LOOKS GREAT”.

            This happened very fast.  ALL the hand finishing ‘stopped’.  All the craft man’s ship... ‘stopped’.  The mold quality was given a ‘make over’.  The ‘interchangeable’ became the creed replacing ‘hand done’.  The

            Train parked at the ‘glass’ ‘factory’ to be ‘loaded’

            The Civil War

            Smothered ‘old’ Yankee “I CARE” craft quality with its blanket.

            “After the war

            Things were different”.

            The Yankee innovated ‘EAPG’; the ‘those are early ones’, was ‘gone’

            Forever.

            Oh no... not quite... for... ‘ever’.  It was... ‘still there’... in the homes.

            For fifty years (1860-1910) nobody noticed.

            That.