Part I: The Glass; When to love and when to hate flaws.

What is a "flaw," in the context of hand-blown glass? Let's begin with definitions:

Flaw: an internal impurity resulting from the way the batch of glass was prepared and handled. NB: This does not include issues of finishing as discussed below in Part II . Flaws are also entirely different from staining and damage – the latter being something that happens after production and is just plain bad.

The most common types of flaws are:

Seed: a bubble formed by gasses when chemicals are united in the fusing or melting of the raw ingredients.

Cord: A striation or line in the glass that may be caused several ways: by variation in the temperature of the furnace; by the unequal density of the materials used; or by some silica in the composition of the pot breaking off and fusing with the batch. It is avoided by thoroughly stirring the batch.

Inclusion: a speck of foreign substance within the glass. It's important to note that not all inclusions are equal; some are benign specks, some are massive lumps or spots that have radiating spider cracks even just millimeters long – the result of the inclusion not annealing at the same speed as the surrounding glass.

Color Inconsistency: either a 'streaky' look from an improperly mixed batch of glass (bad) or a color gradation - 'fading' - from dark to light (not necessarily bad).

With hand blown production glass like Blenko and Empoli, flaws are omnipresent. I'm a perfectionist, so I know how sloppy this sounds – but it's true; people often have unrealistic expectations about the perfection or purity of hand blown glass. I'd hazard that these expectations come from our daily familiarity with plastic surfaces, industrial products that are all smooth and the same, or perhaps from some mythical misconception of what glass is – primarily melted sand.

The virtual elimination of flaws in glass is, of course, possible; one need only look at either common Pyrex or Steuben crystal. Of course Pyrex is made in the millions by machines and Steuben is painstakingly made by hand in a process that goes to great length and expense to create something that appears perfect and controlled. But I don't like Pyrex or Steuben precisely because of their static and coldly slick or industrial appearance - and Blenko and Empoli's original customers seemed to have felt the same way. In fact, this is my central point; Blenko and Empoli aspired to no such technical perfection, it was not relevant to their business model or market.

Historically, glass companies have striven to eliminate any kind of impurity from their glass. This fetish reached a technical apotheosis is Venetian glass circa 1900 and in Scandinavian glass circa 1920 (and certainly there are English/Irish lead crystal precedents too). Thereafter, with mass industrialization and standardization, producing scientifically perfect glass became the norm and indeed required for such applications as automobiles, massive sheet glass windows for Modernist architecture, cookware, and all manner of technical and scientific applications. Virtually at the apex of these trends we find both Blenko and Empoli glass. Empoli glass reveled in the quirky small-town, low-tech craftsmanship it excelled at while Blenko actually set out to produce "imperfect" glass that imitated the medieval glass found in church windows because it had so much character and was particularly successful at refracting light. Blenko's success at mimicking the uneven, mottled effect of old glass – called "antique" sheet glass – was what made the company a success.

Blenko's first tableware products, in fact, were nothing more than the half-way step in producing that sheet glass; a rectangular vase that was originally meant to be cut at the corners to produced small sheets, and a cylindrical vase that was similarly meant to be cut & split to make a sheet (see images above). Blenko also produced its first tableware in direct imitation of - and in competition with- Empoli glass. Not only did Blenko never seek purity as an ideal, such a concept was antithetical to its business model. Blenko actively marketed imperfections as a sign of being handmade. This proof of being handmade was endearing and reassuring to the buying public and still today is seen as a desirable hallmark in the work of the Blenko Glass Company.

So, how then is one to judge the significance of flaws in a piece of Blenko or Empoli glass? I recommend being forgiving but it's primarily a matter of deciding when a flaw is just too distracting for your own enjoyment.

Evaluating Flaws:

Inconsistent Color: Given that Blenko's business was based on color I personally consider inconsistent color to be a deal-breaker if it is a matter of streaking or if the color does not have even intensity it is of less value. With the exception of intentionally graduated colors like Tangerine and Lemon, inconsistent coloration is unappealing in Blenko. With transparent Empoli weak colors are unimpressive, with cased Empoli it is a faliure and should be avoided.

Cords: if pronounced, these can ruin the smooth appearance of the glass and make it look sloppy and primitive; essentially cords can interrupt a design so I avoid them. With transparent Empoli this is not very problematic to my eye, particularly with the thick and dark Verde glass.

Inclusion: If there are spider crack radiating from it, forget it, no good. However, inclusions in dark colored glass are not much of a problem at all. In light colors it depends on frequency and location.

Seeds: These don't bother me much at all; occasional seeds in the glass are normal for Blenko. I am also quite fond of fully "seeded" glass where it is full of many evenly distributed bubbles (the Italians call this techique "Pulegoso"). But when it is patchy and looks like a mistake I don't like it. In other words, it's one extreme or another: fully seeded or a few occasional seeds - avoid anything in between.

Part II: The Skill; proper execution of a design.

Before getting into necessarily subjective tips for assessing how well a piece represents the designer's intent, know that the best place to start, as always, is with original documentation issued by the designer or company. Theoretically, they would be putting their best foot forward in marketing their product by promoting their work with only the best examples. With Blenko it is simple enough to see these examples as all the original production catalogs showing them are available on the Blenko Archive website. But this is by no means a foolproof approach; within the Blenko catalogs it is plainly clear that there are wide variations in the manner of execution of a given design from year to year. The golden rule is to go by the example pictured in the catalog the year the design was issued. (NB: this does not apply to the early B&W catalogs where they simply re-used the same photos in a cut & paste manner each year).

Even with examples of a design made in the same year (based on examples produced in colors that were made for only one year) one can often see distinct variations in manner of execution. At any given time in the Historic Period, Blenko had anywhere from 3 to 6 teams of tableware workers going at once. Each team had a finisher, the head and most talented member of the team who was responsible for the most skilled and intricate work. However, as the designers have repeatedly told me, not every finisher was equal or properly understood each design. Wayne Husted and Winslow Anderson had both told me that they would seek to assign certain designs to certain finishers who were more capable of executing the form properly. Regardless of such efforts, when one has seen enough examples of almost any design it becomes obvious that there may be several different "styles" of execution, each belonging to a different finisher, and as the designers noted, one is most certainly better than the others. Look out for such regular variations in a design's execution and take note which version is strongest and compare to the original catalog illustration.

When examining how designs were depicted in the catalogs from one year to the next, one can also plainly see that shapes were modified over time. In fact, the more years a design was produced for, particularly after the original designer was gone, the more ways were found to mess up a good design. Some beautiful and important designs also proved to be either too difficult or too expensive to produce and were kept in the line a second year only in a striped down version that always destroyed the design. Avoid such "value engineered" designs at all costs; they are not authentic, they are corruptions of the original intent of the designer.

As secondary end empirical methods of discrimination look for the following:

1. Smooth & Well Defined : where disparate parts meet there should be a sharp, clean transition. Avoid significant tooling marks, waving lines or dimples where they should be none. Undulating forms and curves should look taught and even. When minor, such things can be overlooked but when they interrupt the design or are glaring, walk away.
   
2. Bad Blow : when the glass did not fully take on the form from the mold, usually due to either insufficient air pressure from the blower or the glass not being heated enough before inserting in the mold so that it is not pliable enough to blow fully. Some designs were chronically problematic in this regards; particularly shapes with long, narrow areas. Avoid bad blows.
   
3. Symmetrical : You want to see symmetry not only in the overall form but in the way decorative elements are applied.
   
4. Stoppers : the stoppers were made separately from the body and matched and fitted by an entirely different person, after annealing. Sometimes the stoppers were not ground to fit properly, sometimes the stopper itself is poorly formed, sometimes the colors do not match well because the glass came from different batches (NB: with Tangerine both the body and stopper should strike the same; either amberina, orange or red). Stoppers are a key element in any design; do not settle for bad ones.
   
5. Crooked: sometimes it's not so bad if a piece leans at bit; this can be easily corrected with a felt pad applied to one side of the base, or even polished down on the base to compensate. BUT if only part of a design is crooked, for instance if the neck leans while the body is straight, this can be a problem. Such pieces may still display well if positioned to be viewed from a certain angle, but generally speaking… avoid.
   
6. Colors: it is often safest to acquire examples that were produced while the designer was still in residence. Theoretically this means that the designer had the opportunity to instruct finishers in proper execution and vet what was being produced. With Blenko often this can be achieved by seeking an example of a design in a color that was only in production during the designer's tenure. NB: for detailed information on and examples of Blenko colors please consult the Colors page of the Blenko Archive at www.blenkoarchive.org

• Unique to Anderson: Ice Blue, Marine Crystal, Amber, Emerald (re-introduced in 1972) Sky Blue (also used pre-designer), Ruby (also used pre-designer)
  
• Unique to Husted: Teal (also used pre-designer), Gold, Juniper, Jade, Mulberry, Charcoal (re-introduced in 1971), Persian, Nile, Lilac, Aqua, Rose
  
• Unique to Myers: Peacock, Chestnut, Plum, Honey, Lemon, Surf Green
  
• Unique to Nickerson: Pine, Emerald (re-introduced from 1953)

Note that the above colors do NOT mean that all examples found in those colors will be designed by the designer mentioned; rather it means that when one finds a design by one of those designers in a color listed after their name that the example was made during that designer's tenure.

Below: examples of designs made in colors that were both introduced and discontinued during the tenure of the respective designers. All currently available; click images to go to sales page.

Quadruple indent vase #903-4, 5.75" NB: Ruby was in the line before Anderson but not after	Echoes vase #581, 12" (Membership required)	Decanter #6527, 22.5" (Membership required)

Temper the above tips with a few considerations: With rare designs I recommend being a bit less picky – a few times I have passed up examples that were not quite perfect and have never again had the opportunity to own them. Don't forget that Empoli and Blenko glass are handmade and signs of being handmade are not a bad thing. But don't take it from me, here's a quote straight from Blenko's 1940's catalogs:

"Remember – all Blenko Glassware is completely handmade. Each article bears in its form and color the craftsmanship of the maker… Blenko Decorative Glassware is made just as glassware was made generations, even centuries ago. It is called 'Free hand' or 'off hand,' which are to say that it is completely handmade. The only molds used are those of hand-carved applewood which are used to give shape and form to molten plastic glass. Every step in Blenko's glass-blowing process is dependent upon the eye and hand of the craftsman."

Words can only go so far in explaining the subtle differences that make for a failed execution of a design, therefore, below I show some of what I consider to be the most obvious and atrocious examples of good designs gone bad. There are many other similar examples but the truth of the matter is that the only way to know the difference between good and bad is years of experience or consulting with and buying from an experienced dealer like myself… I recommend the latter of course, knowing that the cost of doing it yourself will be a hidden cost in remorseful purchases and wasted time.

Warning! Graphic Examples below - EEEK! Good Designs Gone BAD:

Winslow Anderson's #964 horn or cornucopia vase, (both small and large sizes) introduced in 1951 and in production until 1968 - that's 18 years! BUT for only 3 years, while Anderson was still at Blenko in 1951, 1952 and 1953, was it produced properly according to the designer's original specifications. Anderson considered this to be one of his most important designs and expressed to me his indignation at how the design was mangled after he left.

So, what makes an example 'correct?' Fortunately for me, Anderson took the time to explain to me in detail how to distinguish and also provided me with a drawing (he was very serious and passionate about preserving his design legacy). Below I have supplied two diagrams in order to demonstrate. The far left on the bottom is Anderson's original, signed, blueprint drawing for the design, the image above that is the example shown in the 1951 catalog. In the center is my own diagram superimposed on a perfect example.

In the center photo, note that the horizontal red line is parallel relative to the polished base of the vase (demonstrated with the 'y' arrows). With that line established, it is imperative that the "tail" of the horn not rise above the "mouth" of the vase – i.e. that it is below the red line. In other words, the curvature is meant to be subtle and the horn more elongated that arc-like. The second essential aspect is the proportions; the length of the opening should be twice the length of the tail.

Bonus: the horn shown in Anderson's Designer Gallery on the Blenko Archive website is my own, one he saved from the first batch he made and given to me as a gift by Anderson.

Bonus: For those of you who are motivated to do some homework for extra credit, when I was compiling my list of "most mangled designs" the following designs were on the list – would YOU know how to tell a worthless version from an excellent version? All the basic research material you need to begin is on the Blenko Archive's Catalogs page

920, 976, 533, 535, 564, 5831, 5933, 647, 6423, 6427, 6615, 6710, 6715, 6732, 6733, 6737, 6937, 6955, 7049, 7236

Damon Crain

Please email me with your comments!