House of Brilliant Glass
Thank you Jim Havens! Thank you many times over for sharing A Guide to American Cut and Engraved Glassware. The shear volume of your work is astounding -- over 900 pages of text and photos when printed out in its entirety. The Sixth Edition, which was essentially completed in late 2009, contains a diverse wealth of detailed information regarding American Brilliant cut glass. The information that you carefully gleaned from several years of research offers your readers an abundance of fresh insights, previously unavailable facts and corrections which promote a clearer understanding of A.B.C.G.
We are pleased that you gave us your permission to post any or all of A Guide to our website. Starting in early April of 2010, selected portions of A Guide will be posted to this website. Final postings will be completed by mid-summer, 2011.
The entire Guide to American Cut and Engraved Glassware is currently available on the internet at http://www.amcutglass.com/ Your Guide will now be known to a wider audience of collectors, dealers and students of American Brilliant cut glass.
About
the
Author
Jim
Havens was born and raised in
Jim had his first personal encounter with cut glass when he was perhaps five
or six years old, while the family was still living in the old house. During
early afternoons the sun would often pour in to the parlor. One day its rays
struck a cut-glass knife rest that Jim was playing with. Immediately the solar
beam was refracted, casting rainbows around the room. Although Jim had never
heard of Isaac Newton, he was greatly impressed by his own ability to "make
rainbows" which, subsequently, he often did. Many years later the fully-faceted
dumbbell-shaped knife rest was closely examined and the acid-etched trademark of
the O. F. Egginton Company of
With the death of his mother in 1978, and her sister two
years later, Jim was called upon to close up two households, dispose of their
contents, and sell a two-family house in Olean, a full-day's drive from
Kingston where he lived. Along with all this, Jim was rapidly approaching the age of 50. He had
been associated with meteorology since the sixth grade; it was, he realized,
time for a change! Moreover, he considered that his academic pursuits were part
of his past, not his future. He therefore decided that the school year 1980-81
would be his farewell as a professor at University of Rhode Island and academia. Although this decision was radical
--
and financially hazardous -- it proved to be one that Jim has never regretted.
When it was necessary for an appraiser to evaluate the contents of the two-family house in North Olean Jim was told that the Havens estate had several pieces of cut glass and that they were worth about $35 each. Even though he knew next-to-nothing about cut glass, Jim was immediately suspicious. After all, it made no sense that a five-and-a-half inch knife rest would have the same evaluation as, for example, a 10" diameter bowl that was also signed with the Egginton trademark. (Subsequently Jim learned that the bowl was cut in Egginton's Filigree pattern.) From this experience it was evident to Jim that he would have to undertake an extensive amount of research if he were ever to arrive at reasonable evaluations for the other pieces of cut glass in the estate's collection. This research was not looked upon as a chore because Jim had quickly become captivated by cut glass which up to then had been associated in his mind primarily with Havens/Tracy dinners during holidays when most of the family pieces would be put to practical use on the dining-room table. They included a third signed Egginton piece, a small nappy cut in the realistic Lyre pattern.
Other cut-glass items inherited by Jim included several by T. G. Hawkes &
Company, including an impressive 14"H vase in the company's
Kent pattern, cut on blank no.
1202. This is the only item in the collection that was photographed prior to its
sale. The vase undoubtedly came with the old house, while the following two
alcohol-related items were acquired much later, but before the old house was
sold. They may have been wedding gifts; Jim's parents were married in 1930.
Also, the owner of
One of these items was a cocktail set that consisted of a 12-inch tall shaker, maximum width five-and-a-half inches, in selenium red glass by Steuben with sterling silver mounts. It was richly engraved with vines and small blosoms and was accompanied by eight four-and-a-half inch tall baluster-stemmed cocktail glasses also in selenium red glass and finely engraved with the popular "fighting cocks" motif. All of these items were signed Hawkes. The 9-piece cocktail set sold for $425 at a Skinner's auction in 1983 where the selenium red glass was not identified.
The other alcohol-related item was a 16-inch tall cylindrical "martini mixer" that was cut and engraved in the pattern shown in Farrar and Spillman, 1979, illus. 428 (left). It was signed Hawkes on its applied, four-and-a-half inch diameter foot. The mixer was accompanied by a chrome-plated stirrer. As far as Jim knows, this item was never used -- probably because no one was quite sure how to use it! It sold privately for $200 in 1982.
There was one other inherited cut-glass item that should be mentioned. At the height of the Depression, Jim's father had the opportunity to buy a 14-inch diameter, one-piece cut-glass punch bowl. He could not resist it, even though his wife, the practical one in the family, was less than pleased. It was probably the only piece of cut glass that Jim's father ever bought. The punch bowl was re-sold as-is, with several minor chips, to a casual collector before Jim had begun to use the services of a cut-glass repairman. The new owners were so pleased with their purchase that they promptly placed it, complete with iced punch, on a low table directly in front of a roaring fire. The effect was very impressive until the punch bowl cracked, causing a considerable mess! Later Jim realized that the punch bowl was made by C. Dorflinger & Sons of White Mills, PA. It was cut in the company's Marlboro pattern.
Because Jim's interest in cut glass continued to grow, it occurred to him
that he might enjoy the buying and selling of American cut glass as a vocation
in place of his academic activity. To do this, Jim would need an ample supply of
collectible cut glass as well as the means to "restore" the glass he found to
an appearance that would be acceptable to his customers. Almost all cut glass
will be found in less than perfect ("mint") condition with a seemingly
inevitable collection of chips, scratches, and other blemishes. Restoration of
such items is a highly specialized craft and is one that is usually acceptable
-- in fact, it was expected by most of Jim's customers -- providing the buyer is
informed by the seller as to the nature and extent of the restoration. Luckily,
Jim was able to make contact with an Irish-trained glass cutter, Shay O'Brien,
who was in the business of restoring damaged American brilliant cut glass. He
had a shop in nearby
Shay grew up in
Initially, Hobstar Antiques was quite successful. But as the 1980s progressed
it became increasingly difficult to find quality cut glass for resale at
reasonable prices, at least in the southern
After selling his property, Jim returned to Olean for ten years, then, in 2005, he moved to Corning, NY, "the crystal city" and home of the Corning Museum of Glass and its Rakow Research Library.
