The Sea Hermit

Collectors' Favorites From Jon and Maria Ramberg

2012-01-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

A very nice and unsuspected surprise...

Happy New Year Tom!

It is a beautiful thing to see all the sharing by float collectors around the world that has been inspired by your blog.

Our favorites always seem to be changing but here are a few to share.

Best wishes, Jon & Maria

I've just begun to share with Jon and Maria. After receiving their email, and even though I wanted to go to bed, had to answer their email...

Hi Jon,

What a nice surprise! I just came to my emails to write Stu Farnsworth, to say that his favorites post was finished, and here you are. Thank you for sharing. It makes me very happy.

A question: Were any of these floats added to your collection in 2011? If not, that is just fine. Every collector should have the opportunity to see the incredible floats you have. I am totally taken by the Neversink. I knew that there was a Milk Glass Neversink, but had only seen one, 12 years ago.

Jon and Maria answered the next day...

Good evening Tom,

The 5 floats we chose were added over many different years.

Just for clarity's sake, I asked the question whether the floats had been found during the previous year, but knew after seeing the photos, and feeling very fortunate to have had Jon and Maria's willingness to share, that the answer was not going to determine whether or not I posted during this year's collectors' favorites. I sent the following email to them...

Hi Jon, Hi Maria,

I am truly amazed at the wonderful examples that you have in your collection, and can only imagine what other treasures must be with you. Thank you for sharing your history. I'm so focused on gathering as much existing glass float history...their makers, uses and users as well as collectors and collectors' stories as possible. Every contribution gives me great happiness. I truly believe we are all saving an almost lost and relatively unknown history - just in the nick of time.

A few of Jon and Maria's beautiful Glass Floats

1) Doughnut Float
In his pioneering book, BEACHCOMBING FOR JAPANESE GLASS FLOATS, Amos Woods wrote that less than a dozen of these floats were manufactured. The picture of the rare doughnut float in his book captured my imagination and was an inspiration for float collecting.

2)Twisted Spindle In the BEACHCOMBERS GUIDE TO THE NORTHWEST, page 33, author Walt Pich says “the rarity of a spindle may be measured by the number of twists that are caused by rolling prior to cooling.” One of our most unique spindle floats has a twisted spindle with 30 twists! Is anyone else counting their twists?

3) White Neversink
As we add more colors to our float collection, this white Neversink GB 6 stands out. It fits the "Sea Hermit's" latest research on the origin of Neversink floats. The history on this one is that it was found with a group of other floats that “hung in the barn of a Down East Maine fisherman.”

4) TO (Toyotomi Glass Factory)
What makes this one unique is the color contrasts. Very fine burgundy swirls throughout the clear float give the ball a lighter overall color. This is contrasted with a solid, dark burgundy seal button bearing a heavy and distinct diamond TO mark.

5) Compass and Stranne Oresten Compass Group
The blue compass trademark is amazing! Our colors include cobalt blue, dark forest green and emerald green. Our sizes range from 3 inches to 8 inches.

I wanted to show you a close up of the wonderful Stranne Oresten Compass marking.

Thank you Jon and Maria. It was a pleasure to see and share some of your remarkably beautiful floats!

I would like to end this post with something a very nice British Columbian woman wrote to me a few days ago. Her name is Marlena. We started trading emails, and learning about our shared passion for glass, after I noticed a wonderful Dog Neck float she had for sale to the highest bidder. I wrote her to find out more, and as good fortune would have it, I've chanced to meet a kind and sincere person. Marlena is a collector of glass, and especially very old Persian bottles, known by bottle collectors and bottle sellers as the "Lady Who Buys The Persian Stuff"

Marlena wrote:

"Hmmmm...I don't know what it is exactly about old glass that captivates me and others so deeply. I suppose it's many things all combined. But I know that the pleasure of caring for something that is beautiful and precious and at the same time so curious, delicate and vulnerable is a part of it. Each handblown bottle or float seems to be a self contained and unique universe all its own. When you hold it in your hand or into the light it seems complete...needing nothing more than being exactly what it is...and being enjoyed by the person who cares for it."

I enjoyed reading and identifying with her thoughts. Here are a couple of Marlena's Persian bottle photos:

Collectors' Favorites 2011 From Olaf Raabe

2012-01-22T21:37:00.000-08:00

I have received additional submissions, and promises from other collectors to send their favorites. The next blog post will feature some amazing floats that were not necessarily found in 2011, but that are among that collector's favorites. I know that the readers and collectors will enjoy seeing the floats.

For today, I want to feature a very special collector's floats, which were added to his collection during the last year.

Olaf Raabe is the "Float Collector Extraordinaire". There has been no one like him collecting both European and Scandinavian floats. When I first met Olaf, he told me that he specialized in Norwegian (Scandinavian) floats, and that he liked the very old Norwegian letter floats. I wrote that my passion was European floats, but that I also enjoyed my collection of American, Scandinavian and Asian floats. We began sharing photos of our favorite floats, and descriptions of our passion for them. That led into our first trade, which led into more trades, sharing of our lives, and a great over the Atlantic friendship.

When I write that there is no Scandinavian/Euro collector like him, you can take that description verbatim. Olaf has built the finest collection of rare marks, shapes, and variety of not only the Scandinavian, but also the European floats - in the world. I have been privileged to have his stories and photos sent to me on a regular basis. There is a constant stream of glass balls floating into Olaf's collection, and vicariously, into my awareness. Not sure if this metaphor works, but here goes: It's kind of like watching a field of corn quickly grow. Where once there was bare plowed ground, in a very short time there are green shoots popping up out of the soil, then one day, you suddenly notice that those shoots have quickly grown into tall verdant plants, who's every node has a large perfect ear of corn reaching up to the sun's light.

His collection has grown beautifully in short time, and the quality is absolutely wonderful. In my replies to the steady stream of float photos, float stories of finds, upcoming appointments with old fishermen in their boathouses, answers to advertisements, auctions...from every source imaginable, I kid him about his prowess, and the wonder of it all. My kidding, is reverse tongue in cheek. I really am serious. There is another side of the Float Collector Extraordinaire, that readers may have already recognized.

Olaf gives as good as he gets. Via this blog, and emails shared between myself and other collectors, together with the desire of Olaf to meet others, introductions have been made. Those introductions have resulted in many purchases and trades. There are very few recognized European and Scandinavian float collectors who have not had their collections measurably enlarged because of Olaf's ability to find floats in his native country, but also his willingness to help other collectors. No one can ever say that trading with or selling to Olaf was anything but a pleasure, and how thankful they are to have had the opportunities. I'll let Olaf take it from here.

"Hi Tom,

2011 was a very good year for both hunting and trading glass floats. Being a collector of Euro and Scandinavian floats only, I am first of all thankful to all my friends for giving me the chance to improve my collection through trading."

My favorites last year were the following:

1) Raised Neck floats - A special trade was made with a very special friend, that will always remind me of our good friendship. Here a photo of the Heye Clover Neck float,
together with another German S Neck float and two British Neck floats. Thank you Tom for being so generous.

2) Doorknob - A Swedish lady with a summerhouse at Aaland found 3 beautiful doorknobs. The trio was won on a Swedish auction site, and thereafter shared with two friends. This one is a small beauty, with a very special color. I call this one the Aaland Doorknob. Hanging with the Aaland Doorknob is a small, yellow Torvald Stranne that was also added this year.

3) Norwegian "Eggs"- These small eggs were all found in the Namsos area and represent glassverks at Aasnaes, Moss and an unknown glasswork.

4)HFC - Both of these two Swedish HFC-embossed floats are quite heavy and no doubt used as fishing glass floats. Both were originally found in Sweden. One was purchased from the U.S.A., and one from Germany.

From the author: The first one of these I had seen was a colorless example. My German bottle collecting friend sent the photo, and later, an opportunity to add one to my collection.

5) Russian floats - The small float on top of the big Estonian Teardrop float is a 2-piece molded float that is marked with the number 3 followed by a Dot on the side of the float. I hope I will be able to to find a Russian Hammer & Sickle marked float in 2012.

6) Colored floats - The red one came from France. Its seal is embossed with snails, whilst the blue float is British-made. They are both Contemporaries. They are together in the photo with an old and heavy and unmarked British glass float.

7) BIOT - These beautiful colored floats were purchased from France. These are probably made for decoration only. Biot's floats do look like they were made as original glass fishing floats.

8)The S.A.P.R.I., and the brown/amber Italian Societa Altare.

9)Marks with unknown origin: the Janson Import;

Relsky and

Vigo. These all came to me thanks to good collector friends in the U.S.A.

10)From France, The Cameleyre Freres Aracachon.

From the author:
Cameleyre Freres was a French fishing company founded approximately 1889, and Aracachon is a French fishing village. I have been searching for one of these for my collection for a long time. This float was offered for sale on Ebay. I did not win it, but something interesting happened during the auction. I had purchased a float from a French woman. During our correspondence, I asked her to help me find a Cameleyre. She wrote back to say that a friend of her's had seen one at an outdoor sale, but considered the price too high, so passed it up. I sent the auction to the French woman to inquire if this Cameleyre might have been the same float. She assured me that it was not, that the other example was marked differently. Where is that float? Will one come to me someday?

I know that Olaf took great pleasure in sharing these floats with the readers, and I wish to say, "Thank you," to Olaf for sharing his floats with us. I would also like to continue Olaf's submission with a brief discussion of Biot, its location and glass.

In an end-of-2011 trade with Olaf, a beautiful straw colored green Biot was part of our deal. Years ago, a brown example was sold on a French auction. I did not win that float, but my interest in the Biot floats started. Roger and Maria Brun, on the website: www.norwayfloat.com, have a short history and photos of the Biot Glassworks in France. After receiving my first example, I began to research the company, and found a book, written in French and English, called: REVE DE VERRE - DREAMS OF GLASS A Half Century of Glassware in Biot. Eloi Monod and After...

The book begins with a discussion of the geology of France's Biot region. Here is a short paragraph written at the end of the discussion:

"As has been pointed out, the Biot area is rich in almost all the raw materials used in the making of glass, namely silica, aluminum, calcium oxide obtained through the calcination of calcareous rock, and manganese. Furthermore, the ash tuft is used for making glass ovens."

Hmm...manganese - a discussion of manganese, which was added to glass mixtures to counteract the aqua to green coloration in glass, was written about in an earlier post. The addition of manganese to the glass mix produced colorless glass, which together with the ultraviolet waves of sunlight, turned found European glass floats various shades of lavender. I have been postulating that the lettered sun turned floats were made in France. The information above gives me a bit of a lift to the postulation.

If the reader recalls, Richard Carlson brought up the use of Selenium taking the place of manganese. I have learned that Selenium imparts a yellow/straw coloration to glass. That left me with the question..."If manganese use mostly ended early in the 20th. Century, then why were floats made later, sun turning lavender? Recently, I've wondered if the use of recycled glass might be the answer? There is no doubt that glass fishing floats were produced as cheaply as possible. Is it possible, that like the Japanese float makers, glassworks in other countries, and in this case - France, may have used large amounts of recycled glass in their float mixtures too?

In the next chapter titled, "An Impressionist Saga," the birth of La Verrerie De Biot is discussed. Biot Glass is known for the beauty of it's suspended bubbles. Bubbles in glass mixtures are normally a sign of inadequate heating of the furnace, and is not something positive in quality glassware. To the glass float collector, bubbles in glass add to the beauty of the ball, and in some instances, the number of bubbles adds to a float's monetary and/or trade value. I found some very interesting paragraphs in the chapter:

"For centuries glassmakers had known bubbles well - and had bad dreams about them - just as they detested the "strings" and "stones" and other imperfections that result when glassmaking goes wrong. The temperature must be kept high long enough, that the gas generated by the fusion of the ingredients can escape. If the bubbles do not have time to rise up and break through the surface of the molten glass, they become trapped there and ruin its appearance."

Some glassmakers in the early twentieth century, made use of this kind of flaw to create special effects (think Japanese Spindle floats). But, there was also another very old and widespread technique long employed in this trade from Scandinavia to Bohemia and Venice. Bubbles are deliberately created by sprinkling sodium bicarbonate on the "gob" of glass before it is plunged back into the melting pot for a second gathering. Thus the particles are imprisoned between two layers of hot glass and break down, producing tiny uniform carbon dioxide bubbles which catch and refract the light like miniature magnifying glasses.

The Biot glassmakers borrowed this well-known effect and based their style on it.

After reading this, I understood more about glass float bubbles, and speculated to Olaf, that the bubbles and other imperfections found in the Norwegian S-embossed floats could point to a smaller, and much older glassworks. Perhaps the discussion about bubbles in poorly heated glass furnaces gives us insight into the possiblity that the old lettered "S" floats were made at Sauvig Glassverk, and were made prior to 1840/41?

As you can see in the photo of my hay colored green Biot float, the bubbles are the focus - one of the company's trademarks.

Collectors' Favorites 2011 From Stu Farnsworth

2012-01-14T19:38:00.000-08:00

Hi Tom,

Here are a few scans of my better floats received during the 2011 season, with brief descriptions:

The Black float is an opaque, grapefruit sized beauty that was found in a dilapidated fisherman's shed in Honshu, Japan, before the Earthquake and Tsunami.

The Double FF Hokuyo is the opaque-yellow vaseline glass float, grapefruit-sized, and came off Ebay.

The Green is a gem. It's a pure kelly green, very bright and a rare color indeed. It's very brightly colored, and a real gem for my color collection.

The Clear Roller is a 6inch Tohoku. Very nice colorless float that has been well used.

The Blue Dot is outstanding because it is not the standard golf ball-sized, it is the size of a baseball. It was found on the Aleutians by Paul Umloff. I was very lucky to get this outstanding float as it is one of the most intensely blue seal buttons that I have seen.

The Purple and Beer Bottle Brown TO in a Diamond floats, were acquired in a trade for my rare Japanese Football Float.

The Robins Egg Blue Baseball-sized gem is just that - a fantastic very beautiful blue, which is the only float in that color in my collection.

Late last winter, Stu sent me the following email, and included photos of his collection of colored Boxed In A Diamond TO Japanese floats. I knew about the rarity of these floats, because I religiously follow the Ebay glass float auctions, and over the years, had seen less than a handful of these floats for sale. Each auction was vigorously bid on by many Japanese glass float collectors, and the final prices paid were always quite high. When I looked at the photos of Stu's collection, I was stupefied. I had no idea that there were so many color variations of the marking, and to find that Stu had been working for 25 years to build this collection, simply amazed me.

Hey Tom;

A happy note: My trade finally went thru. After 6 months of negotiations, I was able to get a solid deep Purple TO, and a killer deeply sandblasted Honey Amber TO. I have enclosed scans of my complete TO collection as of this date. I've been working on this collection for 25 years.

I now have a 2nd Cinnamon and a 2nd Purple. Now, I can trade for another color TO I don't have. I still need a Bright Green and a Blue. I'm hoping that these two traders will come in handy.

The Deep Purple is my trump card. I have to sit back, wait and hope that one comes my way. Anyway, wanted to share these with you because I knew you would appreciate the value of these very rare marks. You are welcome to put any of these on your blog if you would like.

The Grooved Roller, you already know the story. (See the Nov. 1, 2011 post): "Lightening Strikes Stu Twice".

Baseball-sized Japanese Salmon Gill net Float with no visible cracks anywhere to allow so much water in a pure gem.

Korean three-piece molded Anchor. It is a baseball-sized float that was found by Paul Umloff on a Aleutian Island beach.

As many of the readers know, Stu, and his great friend Alan Rammer, are the authors of two editions of the collector's price guide and identification handbook:

"GLASS FISHING FLOATS of the WORLD".

While the prices are not as accurate as when the books were first written, the books have been the best source to identify European and Scandinavian float markings, sizes and colors - as well as some of the Japanese and American-made floats. They have been a help to many collectors and sellers over the last 10 years.

Stu is another reason why I am a lucky man. We have been enjoying a fine across the U.S. email friendship for a number of years. My first float trade was done with Stu, and as time has passed, Stu has been a constant source of fun and fellowship. It took many years before I was finally able to return a favor or two to Stu. You see, many times Stu has given great gifts of himself and help to me. For his friendship, I am very thankful.

If you wish to read a nice 3-piece story about Stu, go to:

www.odysseyseaglass.com/glass-fishing-floats.html,

and if you would like to see a 2-part video that Stu made of floats from his collection go to Google Search Engine, and type in:

You Tube video-Glass Floats Collection

You may have to do a bit of searching, so if you cannot find it from my hint, still go to Google, and search for: You Tube Video-Japanese Glass Fishing Floats. That's how I originally found Stu's videos, and there are other interesting videos about floats on You Tube.

As soon as I am able to, last year's favorites from the "Float Collector Extraordinaire," Olaf Raabe, will appear.

Collectors' Favorites 2011 From Richard Carlson

2012-01-08T17:50:00.001-08:00

Another good friend and glass float collector, is Richard Carlson. "Hammerclaw" Rich, his best friend "Buff", together with "Grape Jumpin" Jim, were my companions when we were on a Caribbean island beachcombing during 8 fun-filled days in my life. Rich is a very good photographer, and if you are interested in seeing more of his float photos, go to Roger & Maria Brun's website: www.norwayfloat.com, and look at the floats listed by markings and varieties.

Rich has been sharing his float finds over the years via emails. It's always a pleasure finding one of his emails waiting for me to open.

Hi Tom,
I'm glad you are doing a top 5 again this year. Bruce told me I better get ready, but I didn't want to send anything in when he did, I worried I might jinx myself before the year ended. They're in no particular order but I will start with this one:

not a rare float, in fact it's a rather common float, a green SB 10cm. For many years I have been fortunate to be invited by my very close friend to actually beach comb floats in the Caribbean islands. Hot, sometimes buggy, bodily abusive, beautiful, stupid amazing fun is the only way I can describe it.

Anyway, on this one particular shore there was a mangrove bush, and in this mangrove bush there was a glint of glass showing in the sun. Now branches on tropical bushes don't bend, they poke you and hang you up with their sharp stiffness. You can't just push a branch to one side and wade in for your treasure. Rather you crawl, wiggle and worm toward your goal. On top of that, 99% of the time your goal turns out to be a beer bottle or a light bulb. Not so this time, the glint of glass was a float. Bob took the picture as we both cracked up at the sheer craziness of this hobby. A great float and a great memory.

When I was first introduced to Bruce Gidoll, he was trying to work a trade for a "yellow" float that I had beach combed with Bob. He really liked the float but "it's not yellow" he said. "You come to visit me and I'll show you yellow. Your float is light amber, or gold, or something but not yellow" No one knows color like Bruce, but I still thought I had a yellow float. When I finally did visit Bruce I saw that he was right - of course, and I did not in fact have a yellow float. E bay solved that for me this year with this yellow Hokuyo FF I found listed as a Blenko glassball.

When I first saw this Stokksund Egg it reminded me of a Japanese Torpedo. I had just purchased a house, and when I was offered this float I "cheaped out". I looked at the pictures posted on this blog, and said to myself "nah, too much like a Japanese torpedo, I don't want to travel that road". Four times I was offered one of these eggs, and four times I declined. What was I thinking? Fortunately someone much smarter than I am took a different attitude. You need this in your collection he decided. He was right, it is a unique beauty, always to remain near the front of my showcase where I can see it well.

Being newer to collecting than several readers, I've spent a lot of time referring to Stu's and Alan's book "Glass Fishing Floats of the World", learning the various marks. In the back of the 2nd. edition, is the "West Coast Collection" which I wrote off as "never will I find one of those". I pictured years of dedication to Oregon antique stores and bars would be required to find just one. Fortunately this fall I came in contact with a great guy in Virginia who was selling some of his collection. In the ones he was selling was this Hank. Now, if I go to Oregon I can visit the bars for recreation.

Tom said the more the merrier so I've included a couple more. I finally was able to get a descent picture of my NEVERSINK GB5 which I purchased this year from Ken. Man clear floats are tough. I was told they may be US made, but I don't know. Has anyone ever found one in Europe? Is it Great Britain 5 or Glass Ball 5? Don't know. It's quite heavy, but maybe not that rare, I just love the name. Put it out there! NEVERSINK, never, never, never, never! Sounds like Churchill in his never surrender speech. Think if we could all buy cars named NEVERBREAK or fly on an airline NEVERLATE, wow would that be cool. I bet these floats came with a lifetime warranty.

Rich, GB may stand for Gunderson/Babbit. Gunderson Glassworks was reorganized in 1939 in New Bedford, Mass. Issac Babbit was Gunderson's partner. Babbit was a metal worker, and may have designed their molds. I've been trying to find out if that company produced the Neversink GB5 and GB8, as well as the Pat. Pending Colorless Teardrop. They were producing glass just before, and during WWII, becoming Gunderson-Pierpoint Glassworks after the war ended. The company produced a line of utilitarian products during the early years. The timing of production, and the place are right, but I haven't found the proof of the company making floats...yet.

Iridescent green, this float has to make my list for the year. I love the color, the shape, and the little bit of remaining treated rope that shows this float caught some salmon in its day. Swedish

For my last floats I would choose this pair of LT5s. Both lost at sea, drifting all the way from Europe (maybe France) to end up on a Caribbean shore. The float on the left is my final beach find of 2011 shown just as it was when I found it. Where is the top of the net? It must have sat on the shore in the sun so long that the ropes finally gave up and evaporated! Found 6' from the water's edge. How many people had passed it by over the decades? The float on the right is a trade from Bob, which was given to him by a mutual friend - one of my favorite people on the island. This float will always bring good memories. Worth little, beat to crap, bruised, maybe even no longer able to float, they're both full of history and stories and they complete my favorites of 2012. I was a lucky man in 2011 and if I am only half as lucky in 2012 I am still a very lucky man.

Thanks for sharing your great finds with the readers Rich.

It's been amazing seeing the growth of Rich's collection over the last two years. When we first got together via Ebay auctions, Rich's collection was mostly made up of Caribbean beachcombed finds. Not a bad thing at all. A lot of pleasure came my way via Buff and Rich's beachcombing stories. Now, his collection is comprised of rare colors, very hard to find and rare maker's markings, as well as beautiful float shapes such as the Stokksund Egg and Dog Necks.

I've been fortunate to watch the "blow up" of his collection, and have marveled at the incredible beauty of his woodworking craftsmanship. Rich builds the most beautiful and imaginative display cases I've ever seen. It's a pleasure knowing him. Thank goodness for glass balls!

P.S. If you click on the photos, they will enlarge. Seeing the enlarged photos of Rich in the Mangroves reaching into the brush for his float, enhances Rich's "Caribbean beachcombing" description very well.

Collectors' Favorites 2011 From Bruce Gidoll

2012-01-05T15:49:00.000-08:00

Here is the 1st. submission of Collectors' Favorite Floats from 2011.

My good friend Bruce Gidoll started asking me a few months ago if I was going to do another series to start the year? My answer: "You bet! It was so much fun doing it, and got the best response of anything written on the blog."

At some time during our numerous October and early November telephone conversations, Bruce brought the subject up, telling me that he was working on getting photos together, soon they would be sent, and after they were sent, he phoned, and excitedly asked...

"Did you get my email with the photos? Do you like them? Can you use them? I'll get them done again if they're not right."

Bruce's photos arrived before Thanksgiving. His exuberant determination is a joy.

I'm lucky to have a glass float friend like Bruce here on the East Coast (only a few states away) to talk and email to. Bruce is the proverbial "kid in the candy store," whenever he gets a new float. He wanted so badly to have fun again by sharing his great acquisitions and joy. As you all know, it gives me great pleasure to share with the readers the fun that other collectors have. I would imagine all collectors experience the same thrill of a new acquisition?

For me, to be able to walk into my float room, and see the new one brings happiness to moments in a day. Holding the wonderful float. Looking at and photographing it from every angle within the light streaming through my south-facing window. Placing it in just the right display spot. All of these experiences add to the surge of happiness...and wonder...that this new beauty is really with me to enjoy whenever I wish. As time passes, an example procured months or years earlier is suddenly noticed. Lighting makes it shine out from the rest, or for some other reason - the float happens to catch my eye, and does not allow me to forget that older "new beauty". Certainly, there are other emotions experienced by you to add to my list. Submissions of photos and writing by you, are why I enjoy these "new year illustrating the old year," posts so much. Here are Bruce's favorites:

Hey There Tom,

The following floats are the finest I obtained on 2011. I am quite thrilled with this year's catch, despite little help from Ebay.

(I think that all seasoned collectors experienced a lot of time between great float auctions last year. Although, I tried to remain positive that there were great floats appearing, and that it was just a case of the long time collectors already having examples of the goodies that did appear, I too was waiting and looking hard to find something. As the weeks and months passed, I kept saying and writing to my friends: "The Fat Lady hasn't sung yet". For Bruce that was the case. He had a great acquisition at the beginning of the year, then a long lull, followed and ended by a great December. It's time to stop digressing, and allow Bruce to tell you his story:

My top 6 are listed in the order in which I obtained them with some details. I hope you and other collectors will enjoy seeing them.

Keep up the great work with your Blog.

All the Best, Bruce

1) February Giant Black Egg Float

This type float,one of the earliest to be used in Norway, is 7 inches in length. It has a complete Mold Line around the glass, and is very heavy, while being nearly opaque,even when held in direct light.
NORWEGIAN

2)May Lavender Bullet Rolling Pin

One of the most highly prized type and color of Rolling Pins, this Bullet is a wonderful Lavender in color. 6 1/4 inches long, with abrasions from it's many years of Rolling on the sand, being quite evident.
JAPANESE

3)June Basketball size Cranberry Float

This is the only Cranberry Float known to exist in this Large Size. It is a bit darker than the more common 2 1/2 inch size.
JAPANESE

4)June Basketball Size Dark Swirled Cobalt Float

With its very heavy Glass, along with its many Dark Swirls and Large Seal, make this float quite striking when displayed with other Cobalts of different Sizes.
JAPANESE

5)June Basketball Size Black Pumpkin Float

Of all the colors beachcombed of this strange unusual float, none is more sought-after, or is as rare as the Prized Black Pumpkin. I have a number of Pumpkins of this size, and no two are alike in any way.

In every color of Pumpkin I have, all are different in many ways, such as the Number of Patches, their Weight, and especially their Shapes. Some are 100% Opaque, with absolutely no light visible when held up to the sun. As of now, still no one knows their origin. These are my favorite type of all Floats.
ASIAN

6) July 16 x 11 Teardrop with a Beautifully Woven Net

Teardrops of any Size are not very common. This example with it's Absolutely Beautiful Hand Woven Net, makes this one a prize to display. The Net is so tightly woven, it is impossible to detect the color of the glass.
NORWEGIAN

One late spring Saturday morning, while looking for floats, I spied a Norwegian offer to sell a batch of floats found in a boathouse. The sale contained a pair of Teardrops, one of which was Bruce's float. Immediately, an email was sent to the Raven, hoping that he could purchase the floats for us. He wrote back to say that they were no longer available. Later, the buyer of that sale sold one of the Teardrops. Months passed. During a telephone conversation, Bruce told me that he had been given the opportunity to add one of the pair of floats to his collection. The vagaries of float history provided an opportunity to share Bruce's happiness having this beautifully netted glass Norwegian Teardrop with you.

I would like to end this post by extending an invitation to the readers of this blog to submit float photos from your collection for publication in this year's series of Collectors' Favorites. A bit of commentary (length is totally up to the writer/sender) makes you and your float photos come alive for the readers. Kindly do not feel intimidated because your collection does not contain the rare. It is much too enjoyable to just see and read about all collectors' floats and motivations to worry about competition. This blog and the stories are all about fun, history and beauty. You can send submissions to me at the email address found on the right hand side of the page, at the bottom of the photo and the caption "About Me". The More the Merrier! Thank you in advance.

What A Nice Way To End 2011

2011-12-31T11:22:00.000-08:00

Walked around the back of the house to the front porch to see if my package from Sweden had arrived, and "I'll be gulldarned"! There it was!

"

Exercising as much patience as possible, I went inside the house, and grabbed my camera to photograph the scene for you. Thoughts that the box and its contents were a perfect way to end the Old Year, and begin the New with a post to the blog were in my noggin.

The mailing originated from Sweden. It is the third package to cross the Atlantic from Scandinavia in the last month. All three arrived here on Saturdays, after an approximately 10 to 14-day sending, crossing and arrival. Terrific.

Opening the box, it was good to know that nothing had broken. Having had the experience of hearing the sound of broken glass inside a newly arrived package, an exhale of happy breath, after giving a box of floats a shake - came out of me. On top, a layer of rolled up Swedish newspaper pages.

Underneath, a layer of confetti, and once removed...

Bubble wrapped floats.

After removing the wrapping from the first float, I was wonderfully surprised to find that the first Dog Neck was even smaller than a Swedish float that was sent to me from Roger Brun earlier in the fall. That was the smallest I had ever seen, and as you can see from the photo comparison, the new example is decidedly smaller. The larger example is 4 and 5/8ths. inches tall by 3 and 7/16ths. diameter. The smaller is 3 an 5/8ths. tall by 3" diameter. Both have the "flared, or Wide Prescription" Closure.

During my research into glass shapes, I've learned the names of bottle seals or closures, and looked forward to sharing this piece of information with you.

From the BLM website managed by Bill Linsey:

The thin version of the wide prescription finish is primarily and commonly found on medicinal and druggist type bottles and vials that date between 1800 and 1870, though the style dates back to antiquity (Toulouse 1969b). It is also found on some early to mid-19th century liquor decanters, utilitarian, ink, and cologne bottles (McKearin & Wilson 1978). This style was also used on chemical reagent bottles from the late 19th through early 20th centuries (Whitall Tatum & Co. 1902). Many early case gin bottles have a type of this finish which would be more appropriately called a flared finish (discussed below). When discussing medicinal bottles, the name wide prescription finish is most appropriate; when discussing other types of bottles, the more generic flared finish is preferred.

Now, we know that this finish was also applied to Swedish Dog Neck floats too. Thanks to our bottle collecting brothers and sisters, we can learn so much more about the production of utilitarian glass objects- specifically - glass fishing floats.

There is a bit of funny history that precedes this box of floats coming to me. At the end of summer, a Swedish sale of a batch of this type of float came up. Four of us wanted to get together to bid on and win the auction. After winning, we wanted to share the floats among ourselves, and to further share them with a few other collectors. One of our group was going to do the bidding. As has happened to all of us, at the end of the auction, our bidding partner was unavailable to bid, and the auction was sold to someone outside of the group.

Abject apologies were sent out, and all of us agreed, that that's the way the "float" crumbles. But our bidding partner was not giving up. After searching, inquiring, and getting an affirmative answer, our good friend, purchased almost all of the floats, and sent them to the rest of us, who then sent extras onto other friends. That was when we discovered that the floats in that auction were not what we thought they were: Doorknob, or Aland floats. They were the smallest version of Dog Necks we had seen at the time.

A bit of time passed, when suddenly, another auction of those floats appeared. OK! We were going to have another opportunity to try for a bunch. There were more collectors we hoped to pass examples onto via trades, etc. My partner and I were going to go for them. An agreement had been reached. My partner was going to bid in order to save the wire transfer fees that are incurred when sending money from one country's currency to another. At the closing time of the auction, my partner could not be available, and "Son of a Gun!!" we missed them again.

A couple of months passed. I had been wondering,

"would another opportunity arrive? Did the seller have more of them?"

One November morning, another auction of small Swedish Herring floats waited for me to find it. I decided to bid first, and ask questions later. Well, you know the outcome, and here they are in photos for your enjoyment, and mine. We've found not only a smaller sized Swedish Dog Necked float, but also the first 3" diameter Swedish round floats that I have in the collection.

Best Wishes to everyone in the New Year!

KVEITEKULAS - Halibut Egg Floats

2011-12-26T19:55:00.000-08:00

In mid-2000, Per Einar returned from a float expedition with photos and the great news that he found, and had in his possession, two Norwegian Large Egg floats. Did I want one? Absolutely! Then the bottom line, a line that was impossible for me to cross at that time of the year. It was winter, my expendable funds were low, and as much as I wanted to add one of those very rare floats to the collection, monetary restraint was necessary. As the years have passed since Per Einar's great finds, the desire to have an example in the collection - never diminished. Then...

It finally happened!

After 6 months of effort, coupled with a great trade, heartfelt thanks go out to the help of my friend "the Raven," and to the exertions of an unnamed explorer. The realization of having such a float, but also an example that was made from almost totally black glass, has been realized.

When I look at the float with back lighting, no light comes through the glass. It is only by having the sun positioned directly behind the float, that I see a small patch of red/brown amber.

My benefactor and I have speculated on what glassverk produced the deep brown glass Halibut Egg floats. The Raven wrote:

"The coastline of Norway, or length from south to north is about 2000 kilometers. All the big eggs are found between Bronnoysund and Trondheim. Located in the middle of Norway (a coastline of say about 300 kilometers) is the Namsos area with its historical 6 glassverks, about 1/3 of the distance from Trondheim area. The only glasswork north that made darker glass floats was Bjorum - marked B with the dott. I have one dark brown and amber from there, but the production list from 1880's doesn't say anything about Kveitekula. So the production place of these floats is still in the dark.

Schimmelmann is far south, in fact not more than 40 minutes with car from where I live. The location is wrong but the color is right. You know in 1830's they shipped with boats. That I know. So Schimmelmann Glasverk could have easily sent them north by boat for the halibut-fishermen. That would be poor speculation, but still a valid point for the blog. It is in fact easier to exclude which glassverk it can't be."

The great collector of rare colored authentic glass floats - Bruce Gidoll has one. The two of us were very lucky this year. Bruce got his float last winter via a purchase from the greatest haul of rare Norwegian floats that I know of. 18 months ago, the Raven sent me photos of three Kveitekulas that he had just received - two black, and one green. They were found by one explorer, who also had found another black, (Bruce's) as well as a handful of Aasnaes One Knobbed floats. Absolutely amazing!

Bruce and I talk on the telephone or email one another almost daily. A few days after the delicious wait for his float to arrive from the other side of the Atlantic ended, Bruce called to tell me,

"Tom, my Black Egg has climbed all the way to the top 3 of my favorite floats".

In a later telephone chat, he told me that it ascended to the top 2. That's saying a lot! Bruce's collection of rare and incredibly-colored authentic floats is amazing to see, and for that float to be among his top two favorites took me by surprise.

A few months later, knowing how much I would like to hold one in my hands to look at, he purchased a special carrying case for his float, packed it safely inside the case with bubble wrap, and brought it together with his sweet wife Lupe, to celebrate their visit to our home last April. Together with the float, they were ready with camera and enthusiasm to record the look on my face as I unpacked the float. At that time, I told Bruce about the Norwegian search, and later, the negotiations that were taking place on my behalf. He was cheering on the sidelines for me to have one too.

Bruce's float is different when looking at the glass seal or seal bead. His float has a raised and pointed seal, while mine has a flat and crude seal. The color of each floats' glass is the same when first looked at. My float captures less light when back lit. The weight of the floats are a surprise when first held. The glass is dense and heavy. At this time, I know of 5 brown examples of the dark brown/black glass, and 7 of the Green Halibut Eggs. The brown/black glass examples all exhibit the same thick and somewhat crude-looking mold lines. The Green examples are thinner through the body, not as heavy in the hand and the mold lines are sharper. The Raven, Bruce and I believe the black glass floats were blown into a wooden mold, and all produced by the same glassverks.

We are calling these floats, "Kveitekulas," or "Halibut Glass Balls". They were used for deep water fishing for Halibut. As the years passed into the 1900's, Portugese-made floats were used for fishing the deep waters for Halibut. They were among the few floats made with glass that was strong enough to withstand the terrific pressure found in the very deep waters fished for Halibut.

The Kveitekulas are a very unique float. According to those who have made expeditions throughout Norway looking for glass floats, they are very hard to find, and of the few that have been found, they are often family heirlooms, and not for sale or trade. The floats are part of the history of the fish known by the names: Kveite; Wheat Fish; God Fish or Halibut. The Halibut is a much revered fish in Norwegian history.

Rock carvings and bones from the great fish have been found in rock caves in the Rogaland, Trondelag and Nordland areas. It is estimated that the human habitations are at least 6000 years old. They were known as Wheat Fish, due to the fish trading in Eastern Finnmark, dating back to the 1600's. The trading of Halibut to the neighboring Russian people was the first trading between people in northern Norway and their farming neighbors in Russia. Those Norwegian fishermen were able to acquire grain in exchange for Halibut. The grain was very important to the people living in the cold and rocky areas where it was almost impossible to farm, and important to the Russian people who did not have access to the Halibut.

The "Wheat Fish," were highly prized, and their value was placed at the same weight in flour for trading. An average Halibut in those days, weighed well over 100 pounds. Cod, Haddock, Pollock and other fish were also traded, but it was the Halibut that were the most important species of fish for trading.

In the beginning the use of spears was the method used to catch the Halibut when they came to the shallow waters for spawning. Later, the use of lines with baited hooks made from carved bone, and fishing in deeper waters, became the method to capture the great fish. "Great," because of the huge size Halibut can grow to - over 600 pounds. In a short period of time, it was realized that the Halibut is slow growing, and too slow to mature to spawning age to allow heavy fishing pressure in any one area. Fishermen learned that areas where the Halibut lived were quickly depleted of fish, and they would not reappear there again. That reality necessitated a constant search to find the fish, and having to fish ever deeper and more dangerous waters became the norm.

As the fishery progressed through the years, and the fishermen fished further from shore, it was necessary to use either handlines or Trawl to catch the Halibut. I've read about the use of "line" (hand line), both from the northern and northwestern Norwegian coast. From Sunnmøre there is the story of a traditional line fishing in the winter:

At the islands, the day began at 4:00 A.M. The fishermen rowed their boats west towards deeper waters. After four to five hours of rowing, they arrived on the fishing grounds, as the day started to brighten. After all of the work to arrive at the area where Halibut had been caught, there still was the problem of finding the "right spot". The fish were not everywhere on the bottom. They would have specific areas to lie in wait (their bodies hidden under the sand) for baitfish, squid, etc., to swim past. As in all fishing, you might be close, but if you weren't in the right spot, you caught nothing. After being fished hard, there were fewer and fewer big fish to find. The waters fished were very deep with strong currents. In order to hold their lines down on the bottom, rocks weighing two pounds or so, were used. The Raven and I have searched for and discussed how the Kveitekulas or Large Egg floats were used. My Norwegian cohort has heard of fishermen saying that they were used on hand lines. From the limited evidence we have, it appears that Kveitekulas were used in hand line fishing rather than having been used on trawl lines, gill nets or trawl nets. As stated earlier, few of these floats have been found, and most are kept as family history. Does that mean that few were manufactured? I think it does.

It appears that a hand line fishery continued through the years of commercial Halibut fishing, but as the numbers caught in each area depleted, the need for gear capable of covering more area than a single handline with a few hooks on it, became necessary. Trawl line fishing had existed for a few hundred years prior to glass float use, and became the standard method used for Halibut as the boats became larger, and the need to catch more fish to pay for the boats and gear increased.

From the book Dorymates: A Story of the Fishing Banks, chapter X.
Trawls And Whales

"The Norwegian fishermen had been catching, selling and trading Halibut for centuries before the North Americans began appreciating this great fish. The Norwegians used a Trawl to catch them long before they were used here"

"A Trawler such as the schoonerVixen, is fitted out very differently from a seiner or a hand-liner. Instead of a large seine-boat, she carries from four to eight dories, and a crew sufficiently large to allow two men to each dory, besides the skipper and cook. The trawls are tarred cotton ropes the size of a lead-pencil, that come in lengths of about fifty fathoms, or three hundred feet each. To these are attached at distances of a fathom apart for cod, and a fathom and a half apart for halibut, short lines of from three to six feet long, to the ends of which hooks are made fast. About six of these lengths of trawl, or 1800 feet, are coiled in a tub, and each dory will carry out and set from four to six tubs of trawl in from twenty to two hundred fathoms of water. The lines contained in the several tubs are made fast to each other, and all are set in one straight line, from one to two miles in length. The trawls are anchored at each end, and buoyed by small kegs, so that the hooks shall hang just clear of the bottom."

And from the Congressional Edition, Volume 1, 1887 comes this description:

"Trawls: "When the fish swim at some distances above the bottom, the trawls are kept at the proper height by means of glass floats."

As technology advanced, and the use of glass floats on nets and lines increased, the use of glass floats to suspend baits on trawls became common. They were much more efficient than wooden balls, or corks, especially when used at the great depths that Halibut live in. The use of Portugese-made floats in Norway for Halibut and any other deep water fishing or netting became the accepted method. I often wonder if the heavy-thick-glassed floats embossed: British Made, with the 5-pointed North Star, and often a number in the center of the star, were used for deepwater fishing? I can see no other reason for the heft of those thick glassed floats.

Continuing the oft-repeated history of commercial fishing, as the numbers of Halibut diminished, the use of trawl nets, fished at great depths became the norm. From a description of Halibut fishing, comes the following information:

In September 1936, Ove Johansen using 10 nets, who's materials and labor were purchased with funds from state contributions, put them in deep water at Skråva in Lofoten. Line fishermen had left the area, believing that it was not possible to make a profit fishing for Halibut there. Johansen made great catches using the hemp yarn nets. The news spread quickly, and by October, 60 boats were fishing for Halibut - fishing with nets. The catches were very good. News of great catches continued to spread, and more and more boats began to fish, until at the end of November, the bottom fell out of the fishery, and the boats began to hunt the fish in new areas outside Hamarøy and Lødingen. The new gear was soon adopted with success wherever depth and bottom conditions permitted it.

During the many years of my study of commercial fishing, a timeline has become evident. That timeline equates the changes in fish populations with the necessity to fish deeper and more dangerous waters, and the change in gear, etc. As the decades of commercial fishing passed, the methods changed. Trawl net fishing became the most often used technique. From the late 1870's until the first years after WWII, the use of trawl nets who's headlines were strung with glass floats, reaped the huge catches necessary to feed the populations, to pay the investors, to pay for the boats, gear, food and supplies to keep a crew, and to pay the crew itself. The huge number of Trawl nets that were used during that 80-year history, accounts for the tremendous production of millions of glass floats in Europe, Scandinavia and America.

Together with the need for the huge endeavors necessary to feed the world's people and fishing economy, came the demise of the great populations of Halibut and other fish that once existed. Afer WWII, the decline in fish populations continued. The need for better fish-finding technology, huge factory ships trawling huge trawl nets, necessitated the use of metal gearing, causing the end of glass float use. Metal and plastic floats could withstand the new metal gearing, and quickly took the beautiful glass floats' place. Those Halibut Egg floats that exist as family heirlooms in northwestern Norway, and in the collections of a few collectors, are reminders of what once existed.

I'm so very fortunate to have an example, and wish to tell you how much that float excites me. I cannot put it inside of a case. It sits on top of a low case to my right. The sun shines through the south-facing window, and lights up the floats around the Halibut Egg. The Kveitekula remains black. It does not reflect the colors of it's glass, as the others do. I am able to caress it in my hands at will. I can feel the variety of textures - the ripples, nicks, patches of undulations and the indentation that is the size of my thumb print on its glass skin. Together with the feel of the float's thick mold lines and the heft of it... all are a constant source of wonder to this float collector.

Photo Credits: The top two photos were taken by Per Einar;
The Three Kveitekulas photo taken by "The Raven" and
The photo of Bruce's Halibut Egg sitting on white is Bruce
Gidoll's photo.

Out Of The Blue

2011-11-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

A recent post dedicated to "lightening striking Stu Farnsworth twice," has prompted me to relate the same phenomenon striking me in mid-October. I was very fortunate to win one of 2fishin2/Woody Woodward's wonderful auctions for a Blunt Nosed Torpedo Roller.

Woody's auctions have always been as good as they get. After the auction, I sent him an email to say, "thank you" for the opportunity, and to ask if he might have an extra Torpedo Roller to sell.

Woody wrote back, and said that he did have one available. I had been trying to add an example of that beautiful float to my collection for many years. After writing about the Torpedo's availability, Woody continued...,

"I have a few euros, but I think you probably have all the ones I have as I got them a long time ago. You do have an amber M egg float right?

I read that last phrase again: "you do have an amber M egg float right?" Then quickly wrote Woody to say...,

"I do not have an amber M Egg. If you've got one that's available, Man! I would love to get yours."

I did have one once, purchased from Dick Chitty.
Dick makes yearly buying and selling trips to outdoor sales in Norway. Many years ago, he returned with a number of Norwegian Egg floats, and began auctioning them on Ebay. His Egg float auctions were the first that I'd ever seen. I knew of the floats, because on the very first night that I sat down to a computer and Googled "antique glass fishing floats," a site came up that showed European glass Egg floats. I've never forgotten seeing the three photos of those uniquely shaped floats, or reading the too-few paragraphs telling of their age and rarity.

During Dick's first auctions, Woody (who at that time, was one of the foremost bidders for European floats) won Dick's amber M Egg. I wrote Dick to ask if he had another. He did have one to sell. The deal was struck, and for years, I enjoyed having that float in the collection. In the summer of 2009 Olaf Raabe and I began to send emails back and forth across the Atlantic.

Quickly, we began trading floats. One day Olaf wrote to tell me of a beautiful rare float which he had a double of. It was available to me if I could offer a good float to trade. It took a while to figure out what I could offer. I hoped to make an offer that would put a smile on his face, and return the excitement that Olaf's float would give me. It wasn't easy to come up with the right combination. One afernoon, as I was driving, the thought to offer Olaf my amber M Egg came to mind. I had enjoyed that float for a number of years, and while I knew that I would miss it, thoughts of the float that would take its place, gave me the feeling that I should make the offer. Olaf gladly accepted, and we have always been happy with that trade. But, in the passing of time, I found myself missing that float, and began the search for another.

I wrote Dick to see if he might still have one. He was kind enough to look for me, but did not. Dick said that he would keep his eyes open for another. He later found some beautiful Egg floats, but not the amber M. I began a new search by writing collectors who might have one, but again, no luck. Woody never crossed my mind. Years earlier, he had stopped collecting Euros, and devoted himself to building his incredible Japanese float collection. Never giving up hope, I continued looking. Olaf had been searching in Norway for me too.

"Out of the blue," Woody offered me a chance at the missing-from-my-collection Amber M Egg. Good fortune. A gift from a friend. Fate. Not only do I again, have an example of that wonderful float gracing my collection, I have Woody's which was Dick's.

The float arrived last Saturday together with the Torpedo and the Blunt Nosed Torpedo. Whenever I look at or hold the M in my hand, the early years of fun bidding for Euros, the people who have come and gone from the Ebay scene, beginning to build the collection - all of those memories are part of it. It's great to have floats that have a special history. It's great to have a story to relate to Stu, and you.

The photo of the Blunt Nosed Torpedo is Woody Woodward's.
The photo of Dick Chitty, was sent to the author by Dick.

Freezing Weather On The West Coast

2011-11-15T17:25:00.000-08:00

Those who have read last fall's post showing my garden with glassballs hanging from the purlins, as well as others on the ground - getting a sunburn, and turning darker, perhaps wondered if I put them inside during the cold winter days and nights? I did protect them during the first winter, but last year, the thought came to me:

"Tom! They're glass. Glassballs have been subjected to all types of weather, from the Tropics to the Artic. They were on the boats coming in from the Grand Banks in winter northeasters with snow and freezing salt spray covering them. There's no reason that they should have any problem staying outside during any season of the year!" So...

Last winter, they stayed outside with no problems at all. In fact, they were buried under the snow for weeks on end, thawed out, frozen - as single digit temps chilled them during the coldest nights, then warmed up in the sun of a new day. When they weren't buried under snow, they were beautiful - hanging there, and shining in the winter sunlight. They charged me up whenever I looked at them.

Todd the "Norsknailpounder," sent an email this morning:

Hi Tom

I woke up this morning and noticed my balls were freezing, just thought you might care. Todd ")

And he included floatos showing me his "frozen balls."

Todd,

Thanks for putting a smile on my face this morning.

Truth is, while there is a sensitive part of me that does care, a bigger part of me, and my balls...have been basking in unseasonably warm temperatures. I've even been working outside sans jacket.

Of course, this glassball collecting farmer has been watching the weather, and knows that a cold high pressure trough has the West Coast to the Midwest in it's clutches. It's only a matter of time until it works its way to the East. I'm spoiled, and don't want these mild temperature to end. So, good reader, perhaps you care that I'm taking the time to share Todd's "frozen balls" with you?

What A Maker's Marking!

2011-11-11T09:32:00.000-08:00

Short post today, but I wanted to show the readers a new addition to One Of A Kind Norwegian floats. This float was found in Northern Norway in late April 2011. The float was found on an expedition, and shared with us by The Raven. Don't know what to name it. Is it HGVI with a Cross, or are the letters intended to be read differently? I do not have any further information on the float's size. The Raven speculated that the initials could be:

Fishermens' initials;
2 Brothers initials or
a Father and Son's initials.

Hopefully, as time passes, I can share more about the float's size. Isn't it amazing that after seeing so many initialed floats from Norway's early glassfloat use, that suddenly, something like this one appears! It is so uniquely embossed, and I wonder where the engraver came from? This float seems out of the norm for Norwegian lettered embossings, but as I look at the mark, I see and feel the Viking in it. The cross reminds me of a float that Per Einar found on one of his expeditions. That float's embossing was a somewhat similar cross, but the cross was much smaller, and without initials. Then there is the VG with the Cross, which is a Euro - not Scandinavian float.

Speaking of Scandinavian - not Euro float. For a long time, I've been thinking that the Norwegian, Danish and Swedish floats should not be considered as being European floats. Olaf Raabe and I both think that they should be classified as "Scandinavian" floats.

Often, when writing sellers of floats from countries outside of America, I want to be specific by calling the floats: British, English, Scottish, French, etc., because it seems important to credit the country and its people with the floats made there, rather than lump them altogether. So, do you think that classifying the above named countrys' float as being Scandinavian is worthy?

Last night, I was asked the question:

"how do I post a comment to the blog"?

The easiest way that I know of is to write your comment, add your name to the end of the comment (if you wish to) then when asked for a "profile," just click "anonymous".

I would love to have more comments shared by the blog's readers. The comments add to everyone's enjoyment, and enhance "sharing". For the author of the blog, there is the knowledge that the post has been read, and is interesting enough that it causes comment. Without feedback, the writing sometimes feels lonely. Hope this helps those who have wanted to comment, but were blocked in their attempt when they came to the "profile," part of the submission.

The photo was sent to the author for sharing by the "Raven."

Lightening Struck Stu Twice

2011-11-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

Sunday evening an email from Stu Farnsworth was waiting for me. Here is what Stu wrote:

Hi Tom,

Been awhile. I wanted to share some exciting news with you about my awesome new find.

Several years back I had to sell my Grooved Roller to pay off some bills. A serious collector in Hawaii had made me an offer I couldn't refuse, but...I had to let one of my very favorite floats go. Realizing I would never be able to replace it was pretty hard. Life goes on, and we can't take them with us.

Recently, I received a letter from a lady who, with her husband, had run a grocery store on the Marshal Islands several years back. In that time, Islanders would bring in floats to trade for groceries. She had acquired quite a nice group of floats that included two double sausages and several rollers. Her request of me was: could I give her an idea of what she had, and how much were the floats worth? She wrote that she had no intention of selling any. To my shock, in one of the pictures was a Grooved Roller. I had to look at the photo three times - just to believe it was really there.

I wrote back asking her if she would mind taking some scans of the float by itself, and send them to me,which she did. The float not only was outstanding,but still had Bryozoan and Coral attached. I immediately wrote her back,and told her whatever she does, not to ever wash and clean that off. I then asked her if she would ever consider selling it to me? Her reply was:

"No, we want to hold onto it since it was the oddball of all the floats that had been brought in for groceries."

I understood.

With very little money in my PayPal account, and having been let go from my job,I devised a plan. I offered a package deal of floats to a collector, which included a Blue Dot, Cranberry, Side Marked Chinese Star, Chinese Amber Star, a Sun Colored Torpedo and a few other floats not as rare. I thought it was a good deal for both of us, and so did my trading partner. My package deal of floats was accepted. After I received the funds, I decided to make a cash offer for the Grooved Roller. All they could say was "no". I had the shakes as I wrote the email, but I did finish it, and sent it off.

Waited and waited that day for a response which never came back. I felt that maybe I had insulted them. Before I went to bed that night I got on the computer one last time. An email from the lady was waiting for me to open. Her response was:

"If you are really willing to offer that kind of money for this float, we would be stupid not to accept."

My heart was pounding so hard with joy!

I tossed and turned trying to get to sleep that night, and tried to calm myself down. I would not have the float for two weeks. The float's owners live in New Mexico, and were coming up here to visit her Mother in Washington State. They wanted to hand deliver it.

The day finally arrived, and I guess the bottom line is - this is what it's all about. Something like this happening to me is just one of the great things that makes this hobby so much fun. Kind of like what happened to you with the Sickle and Hammer float. I feel excitement having a float like this back into my collection. And I have the float's history and the tale of how it all came about to remember. I now know of only 4 of these Grooved Rollers that exist. Here are the scans I wanted to share with you.

Stu

Immediately after reading Stu's email, and looking at the great floatos, I emailed Stu with my impressions, congratulations and the desire to post his story and float to the blog. It's so much fun for me to share these things with you. The stories and floats move me in the happiest of ways. From the kind responses I've received, I know that these shared stories and floats stimulate you too.

Stu answered the next day, and said that he would be really happy to see his story posted for everyone to share in his good fortune. Before I end this post, I wanted to add Walt Pich's writing about the Grooved Roller. The following is found on page 45 of his great book: GLASS BALL A Comprehensive Guide For Oriental Glass Fishing Floats Found On Pacific Beaches:

GROOVED ROLLER

The grooved roller is another float in the ultra rare category. This unique float is similar in size, shape and color to the D.G. roller, but it has a half-inch groove running the entire longitudinal perimeter of the float. It is akin to the grooves found on the American roller which are wider and deeper than grooved European floats. The sealing button has a small dai mark stamped onto the button's edge. The only example of a grooved roller that I have examined is from the fine collection of Stu Farnsworth."

Thanks Walt.

Walt's books are a must for anyone interested in Asian floats, or like me - all floats. He's a fine writer, and his knowledge of the Japanese floats and their history - gleaned from years of research, expeditions to Japan, the combined knowledge shared by other collectors and his friendship with Woody Woodward make up a history that all of us glass float collectors are very fortunate to be able to learn from and enjoy.

Congrats Stu!

A New One Of A Kind

2011-10-27T20:58:00.000-07:00

Approximately two weeks ago, a beautifully shaped, tiny new example of a 19th. Century Norwegian glass fishing float was found in western Norway.

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If the readers remember Per Einar's expedition in March 2009, on Per's first stop, he found four remarkable floats. The floats have been called Aalesund floats in honor of where they were found.

This new float is the same general shape as the Per Einar floats, but is much smaller - about the size of a small Egg float, or tiny One Knobbed.

Rather than having a body that is flattened and elongated the way the Aalesund is shaped, this float has a round body. Both this tiny example and the larger Aalesund floats have the same type of shaped button-like ends.

The float is now in the collection of the Float Collector Extraordinaire. The Raven and I believe that the Aalesund float, the small One Knobbed, as well as the larger One Knobbed, and the new tiny Aalesund type, were made at Aasnæs Glasverks. Aasnæs was one of the very early producers of glass floats. The glasverk started producing its products in 1813, and was in business until 1883. During its time in business, the company produced a huge number of glass fishing floats, and an array of shapes, sizes and beautifully embossed floats that included the large Teardrop Marker glass buoys.

Whether the shaped floats such as the One Knobbed came before the round Cod Gill Net floats produced after 1840/41, no one has yet shown proof of. These beautifully shaped floats were not mold blown, were finished on a pontil rod, and the ends were hand shaped/tooled. Why would the glassblowers have gone to so much trouble creating these pieces of fishing gear, when the round ball with the normal seal button could have been much easier and less costly to produce? Were Cod Gill Net floats the first type of glass floats used, or were smaller floats for smaller fish such as Herring used first? Always, there are questions, and once in a while an answer appears. Congratulations Raven! What a wonderful One Of A Kind to have in your collection.

The photos were provided by Olaf Raabe, and the author.

A Very Interesting Photograph

2011-10-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

From a recent Ebay auction: Report to the Governor by the Illinois State Fish Commission dated Sept. 30, 1890, comes this photograph. The net used was a seine net, and I'm wondering what the readers think the floats in the photos are? Are they glass floats?

As I look at the photo, and see the reflection of the light on the floats, they sure do look like glass. The first photo is at 100% magnification. The second is 200%, and the third is 400%. It would be terrific if the photo not only shows glass floats, but doesn't one of the floats in the foreground look like it has the Knob on one end? The float in the upper right, when looking at its shape and the shapes of one or two others, appears to be Egg-like. Can you see any capnets?

Are the floats tied directly onto the headline? This has been said to be the method used to tie the early Aasnaes Glasverk One Knob floats. Few of those floats seem to have survived, perhaps due to the lack of a protective net? The Raven has written in an email, that they broke easily due to not having a protective capnet, and may be why Aasnaes Glasverk discontinued their manufacture and use. If they are the Plumb Bob or One Knob type, could these floats be the floats on the S.H. Davis Brothers Patent?

What do you think you are seeing in the photos?

To see the photos in a larger format, put your cursor on the photo, and left click. If you roll the wheel on the cursor, you can go from one photo to the next...

Spending Time With Cholly "The Man Who Came Before Us"

2011-08-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

I would like to dedicate this post to Charles Abernethy's son-Mike Abernethy. About one year ago, there was a surprise email from Mike in which he thanked me for writing about his Father. I had hoped that one day, one of Charles' family would come across the blog writing, and contact me. Since that realization of my daydream, we have traded a few very nice emails. Last spring, Mike and his daughter helped give my friend Bruce, a wonderful gift. In order to make that gift possible, Mike took time out of a very important family visit to help me. Thanks again Mike.

Earlier today, an email was sent to "The Raven," in which I told him of plans to revisit Charles Abernethy's booklets for another post. Also written, were thoughts about how wonderful it would be if Charles was still alive. What fun all of us collectors would have had with him. Ended those thoughts with happiness that Charles did what he did through his writing as well as his being our European Float Grandfather. In a telephone conversation with Alan D. Rammer, I asked Alan who inspired him and Stu Farnsworth to collect European floats? He said that Charles was the catalyst for collecting European floats. It was Charles who introduced the West Coast collectors to his European and Japanese Caribbean finds, and floats directly from Europe via notices he had people place on post office billboards, and anywhere else he could think of. Around the world, Charles was "putting out the word," that there was a man looking to purchase glass fishing floats. Once Cholly was bitten with the float bug, there was no stopping his imagination, or desire to add to his collection. His booklets are dated from 1979 until 1990, and each one is a little enthusiastic gem, written by a man who truly loved the glassfloat hunt, the people involved and the floats that came to him. It's such a pleasure to read his writing, and to reproduce some of it for you. From Charles' booklet: A Potpourri of Rare Floats 1983

LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED

Such a phrase is the constant watchword of the float collector. So, this year before I visited the West Indies I decided to send out a few letters to the post masters of two towns to be placed on their bulletin boards (a ruse I learned about from an eminent collector). Interested persons were to contact a man who lived in the city of Kingstown, St. Vincent.

When I arrived at the airport my friend met me with a hearty handshake and then burst out laughing. He said the two postmasters, instead of posting the notices on their bulletin boards contacted the Island's radio station. My friend beamed with pleasure at hearing his name on the air for all 150,000 inhabitants to hear.

"Well, how many floats did you get?" I broke in excitedly.
"None," he replied, "not one, but it sure was nice to hear my name on the radio."

A REWARDING ENCOUNTER

Deep in the native section of Kingstown on the island of St. Vincent, is a drab, unpainted ramshackle building bearing the sign "Fishnet Restaurant". Festooned from the ceiling is a large fishnet decorated with conch shells, lobster claws, starfish and crabs. In the corners of the ceiling are hung large Fishermens glass floats with nets. Despite the few low voltage light bulbs, you can just make out the rickety tables and chairs. What it lacks in impressive furnishings, it makes up with its delicious West Indian dinners of fresh caught dolphin fish, lobsters, conch (or "lambi"), and savory exotic vegetables unknown in the States...christophines, dasheens, breadfruit cakes and plantin.

As I walked to the counter to alert the waitress, my attention was caught by the strange 4-foot glass float marker as shown on page 2.

I had never seen anything like it. It has a very heavy cylindrical metal base which contained a storage battery. On top of the base inscribed in raised letters was the following: SHINKOGYOKI S S MISAKE JAPAN. The 10-inch glass float bearing the double F trademark of the Hokuyo Glass Co of Japan, gives buoyancy to the marker. At the top is a tiny glass container with a small light bulb within. Near the top is a wooden tag with Japanese characters in red on one side, and the word "MERC URIO," on the other, the word divided into two separate lines.

As I stared at it in amazement, the owner Edgar Adams came up and said,

"It's a Japanese channel marker. Picked up by a friend of mine over twenty years ago right here in the Grenadine Islands. Said the lamp was still blinking when he got it. He loaned it to the restaurant as a decoration, but in all these years, you are the only customer who has ever asked one question about it."

I sent a photo of it to a collector friend describing the above events. He replied it is NOT a channel marker at all, but a marking device used by the longline tuna fishermen to mark the beginning and ending of every 100 sets of baited fishhooks as they are played out continuously over the stern of the fishing boat for a distance of sometimes 50 miles.

When the fishermen commence their operation, they first drop overboard marker #1, lighted and ready to do its job. Glass floats basketball size are attached to the line at certain intervals to keep it at a prearranged depth. These floats are the rubber collar type carrying a 6-foot bamboo pole topped with a red and white flag. Then when the next 100 sets of hooks are played out, over the side goes another lighted marker. At night the exact location of their continuous line can easily be observed. When a lighted marker shows unusual agitation it means there are plenty of fish at hand, and then a small boat will be dispatched to investigate the hooks.

As I left, Mr. Adams added,

"Walk on down Bay Street along the shore a half mile or so to the fishing village. They often find floats and bring them in here asking if I'm interested in buying any."

So off I trod in the blistering noonday sun. Not a soul was stirring on the streets...even the stray animals sought shade somewhere. All the shops were closed for a two hour siesta.

At length I found several fishing boats complete with outboard engines on the beach and a score of men idly lounging about under a canvas shelter. Hardly had I asked if there were any "Sea Balls" available when a teenage lad showed up with a green 12-incher in a frayed net...just the type I most enjoy. So suddenly did he appear that it seemed almost pre-planned! "How much?" I asked. The lad hung his head, staring at the ground. I knew then he'd never spoken to a white man before. With those men standing about looking and their knowing about how much money a float should command, I was cautioned to offer a proper price. When I made my offer, he held out his hand in acceptance, folded the banknotes and stuck them in his waistband.

One of the fishermen, a pleasant outgoing fellow, shouted to me, "You take snap of the lad holding the sea ball." That suited me, as the tourist must exercise care in the West Indies when using a camera. The natives just do not care to have their photos taken indiscriminately. Timidly, the lad held up the float. As I left, pleased to get a float and content with the brief interlude at the tiny village, the leader smiled, "You send snap to me...my name is Nick."

In due time I mailed copies of the glass float marker to Mr. Adams enclosing Nick's photo and the shy lad who held up the float. Forty two days later I received a note from Nick St. Clair thanking me for the snaps and telling me he had a grapefruit float he'd send me soon.

So, you see, once in a while, a long complicated chain of events regarding floats will produce some pleasant and positive results.

The St. Vincent 6" Purple L.T.

Ultimately, - six months later - after six months of waiting and six months of palm greasing, I received a roughly wrapped 6"cube-shaped parcel who's sides suspiciously bulged -- It was Nick's float at last! It's a very beautiful 2-piece molded, very light purple with net bearing the mark LT. I had obtained two other LT's xome years ago on Grand Cayman Island. Its color is so extremely pale - almost clear when looked at on its equator that the only purple noticeable is as you look around its circumference.

I hung it outdoors in the sunlight to observe if such exposure to the elements would deepen its purple color. It is said, that by so exposing floats, that the color of the basic ingredients will become more pronounced. Five months later the manganese dioxide has perceptibly deepened its purple color.

It has never firmly been established exactly what country is the manufacturer, tho' some have turned up in the West Indies and none apparently along our West Coast. I would hazard, therefore, they're European made.

Even now, glassfloat collectors wonder where the LT marked floats were made, and what the letters, "LT" mean is unknown. My guess is that the floats were made in France. It has been conjectured that the letters stand for "London Transit," and at one time, I wondered if they stood for Lowestoft. The fishing vessels' numbers from Lowestoft start with the letters, "LT".

Later, Charles writes a pretty acerbic two paragraphs:

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE - (BUT NOT MUCH)

I received a 3" very very light almost imperceptible green two-piece molded float with a most insignificant sealing button located where the two halves are joined together. It is from RUSSIA. A more drab, unstimulating float I have never seen. It has the blahs: it even lacks the expected hammer and sickle logo one would expect, as noted on other Russian floats washed up on our Pacific shores.

I have only to add that if all floats were as dullsville as this I would under no circumstances ever have considered collecting them at all!

"Hey Stu! Hey Alan! Did either of you send that float to Charles?"

Stu sent me one last year. While I understand (we were still in the Cold War/ Charles was a veteran) and chuckle at Cholly's distaste for that float, I do not agree with him. My little beauty sits next to a wonderful example of a Hammer & Sickle float. I'm so happy to have Stu's gift, and think the float is an uncommon float, not often found in collections. It is a great addition toward my goal of collecting the 5 Russian floats that I know of. Charles continues writing about other float acquisitions made that year which included a sandblasted Hokuyo Rolling Pin, a Spindle, three Korean 3-piece molded 3-inchers, the WAIKIKE WONDER - a 10-inch diameter blue/green Double F and a 4-inch Japanese Sausage Roller.

At the end of the booklet is the title:

YOUR KWIK-REFERENCE FLOAT CHRONOLOGICAL CHART

Charles writes:

Since the most activity in finding floats has long been along our West Coast, it is a popular misconception that just about all the floats have been manufactured in Japan.

A glance at your Kwik-Reference pocket-size Float Chart shows that the above paragraph is a myth. Fishermen in Europe have used Norway-made floats since 1840, 70 years before Japan entered the market: Denmark, 40 years; and USA, 30 years. Unfortunately the Atlantic Ocean currents do not flow westward, and therefore we find but few European-made floats along our Atlantic shores.

It is noteworthy to observe that one landlocked country - Czechoslovakia - entered the market at the turn of the century, and turned out their beautiful, high quality and much sought after floats for 40 years, obviously on contract to other countries. Not only is their round MADE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA logo neatly displayed, but even their sealing buttons are smooth and professionally turned.

When I look at the Charles' Chart, I am struck by the information contained there, especially when looking at the American dateline. Charles shows the 1st. American-made floats for the year, 1880. Did he have the same information that I do? How did he know that? Once again, I'm struck by the desire to be able to talk to him. Charles chart also shows: Floats being made in Belgium.

I wonder what those floats look like? I cannot remember hearing of Belgium-made floats. I stopped writing for a minute to look at the markings in Amos Wood's book, and found the boxed S over the A, as "reported to be of Belgium manufacture on float used in Atlantic Ocean Fishery in 1970's. From collection of Charles Abernethy."

He attributes floats being made in Scotland, and Czechoslovakia (the Czech Republic) first being made just a bit before or in the year 1900 and

He has the first Russian floats being produced a bit before or in the year 1960.

That leaves me with question marks concerning the Russian Hammer & Sickle float. When I look at my example, then compare it with the Russian 3. and the non-embossed Russian float, it is differently constructed and sized. All three were blown into a 2-piece mold, and the mold lines run from top to bottom on the floats, but the Hammer & Sickle's seal bead or button is larger and flattened, rather than slightly raised and rounded off. It's glass is differently textured. There is also a size difference. The Hammer & Sickle is 2 and 7/8ths. of an inch diameter, the other two are 2 and 3/4 inches in diameter. Also, the Hammer & Sickle floats, according to Amos Wood, were first beachcombed in 1936, which does not coincide with Charles' graph.

So what! You may be thinking to yourself. Well, for me, the float questions never stop. I want to know as much about floats as I am able to. So, I search for anything that will further my glassfloat understanding, and truly enjoy finding a piece of information such as Charles' QUICK REFERENCE FLOAT CHRONOLOGICAL CHART. Thanks to that chart, and Amos Wood's book, I now know what is considered to be a Belgium-made float.

Thank you's go out to Charles, Stu, Alan and Amos for giving so much of themselves to this collector, and I'm sure you agree - to all of us. I look forward to writing the next post, and hope you have enjoyed another visit with Charles Abernethy.

The Photos:
the 2nd. photo is Charles Abernethy; and
the 3rd. photo from left to right at the top: Stu Farnsworth, Charles Abernethy and Alan D. Rammer. In the lower center of the photo sits Amos Wood.

Put your browser over the photos, left click, and enjoy an enlarged photo.

The Stokksund Egg Float

2011-07-30T05:09:00.000-07:00

Writing to you has been on my mind for months, but I have to ask the readers for their understanding. Life has thrown our family a hard curve to negotiate. In mid-May, my Wife was diagnosed with cancer, and we have been fighting the battle since that time. There just has been no free time that I did not want to spend with Nancy, so my writing had to take a backseat. Things have stabilized a bit. The desire to write is so strong, and it rained last night, giving me a break from hours of watering the plants that I grow for my business.

An excellent auction ended last Sunday for a never-before-seen float on Ebay. It was a tightly-netted, bullet shaped and colorless glass float offered by Olaf Raabe the "Float Collector Extraordinaire". The auction attracted a number of bidders, and for those who missed it, those who would like to know more or those who are lucky enough to have one, for my first post since the spring, I've chosen to write a bit about these "new" floats.

Perhaps it's best if I copy and paste "FCE's" email writings about the float for you. From the beginning:

"Spoke to Mr... today. Very interesting news.
He has found a new type of egg up north. Tom, I thought I had them all. Clear glass, moulded, and oval at both ends-but no knobs, 5 cm wide and 12 cm long. He has no camera, but said that he will send me one float for inspection. To me they sound a bit like larger Hovigs, but without the knobs., and were made in a mould. Strange?
Think I can get hold of a few. Are you interested ??"

Excitedly, I wrote back, and answered that I was absolutely interested, and excited to see Olaf's first photos when the float arrives."

In Olaf's next email he wrote:

"The net with the bullets was found not far from and south of the Namsos area in Stokksund, close to AAfjord, up north. The eggs were attached to fishing nets for catching Hyse, a type of small Cod, and were not for eel nets. These are no doubt new to the collector market, like Hovig. Do you see the mould marks in the photo? There are not many bubbles in the glass, and some have none, so I don't think they are amongst the oldest made floats."

In a subsequent email, it was written that the owner of the net kept a few of the floats, Mr... kept something for his collection, and a few others were available to Olaf, which he desired to make available for serious collectors. The "Float Collector Extraordinaire," has the most "well-rounded" collection of Norwegian floats that I know of. His ability to find and add spectacular floats to his collection is paramount, and he is constantly kind to everyone he trades with. The friendship we share is a true gift in my life. While I know I'm digressing, the desire to let the readers know a bit about this fine man is important to me. To continue...

Olaf and I write eachother as often as possible, and the majority of our email conversations are about floats and their history. When Olaf wrote to tell me of this spectacular find, the first thing I asked him was what they should be called. It was thought that "Stokksund Egg Float," would be a good name. At this time, there may be no other examples of this float found on that lone net in Stokksund. There was a float auctioned in Norway a couple of years ago, which was so heavily netted that it is impossible to know if it too was a bullet shaped egg. Perhaps that float's owner will read this post, and let us know if his float is a bullet shaped Egg Float?

Olaf wondered about a few things concerning the origin of these floats, and said:

"There is one thing I do not have an answer to. If you look at the glassworks in Norway, there is one group North in the Namsos area".

From Olaf's knowledge, together with the map found in Vebjorn Fiksdel's booklet Norwegian Glass Fishing Floats comes the following:

Jossund 1854-1857;
Aasnaes 1813-1883;
Namsos 1855-1867;
Bjorum 1873-1886;
Survig 1809=1821 (Survig Glasverks is noted to have stopped production in the year 1821. We are wondering if the very old "S" marked floats were from Survig?) and Holmen 1812-1840.

There were 3 on the west coast:

Bergen Glasverks later renamed Flesland 1875-1951 and
Hestviken 1849-1857.

And many located in the southeastern part of Norway including:

Biri 1761-1880;
Gjovik 1806-1843;
Hadeland 1862-1876;
Hurdal 1755-1895;
Berger 1857-1895;
Hovik 1855-1933;
Drammen 1873-1977;
Schimmelmann 1770-1832 (where brown/amber unmarked glassballs have been found by diggers);
Moss 1898-1988;
Vallo 1874-1877 and
Larvig 1872-1926.

Olaf continues:

"I have never seen a clear "colored" glassfloat made at the glassworks north and west. We both know the clear glass floats are more difficult to make without chemical additives, because of the iron oxides present in all but the purest of sand."

"The only clear colored glass floats in Norway are the Moss floats, the Hovig Eggs, maybe Laurvig and the Teardrop or Sea Dog floats. Now, we have these Stokksunds. The only moulded made glass floats in Norway are those from Flesland, which are aquamarine colored. I wonder if the large brown eggs, and the bullets could be early Flesland/Bergen made floats? We have to research more into this."

I was very fortunate to obtain two of the Stokksund floats for my collection. One of the float's nets was damaged, which allowed me the freedom to cut it off in order to see the glass. I agonized over the cutting of the net for a few weeks, but my curiousity finally won out.

As you can see from the photo of the netted float, the net is very tight and in the net, one cannot truly see the float's complete shape, mold lines or clarity. There was a residue under the net as well. The roping used is unique. I do not have another example of that type of rope on a float. It appears to me to be Dacron, and is now, gray/white in color.

The float itself is not only differently shaped from any other egg shaped Norwegian float, it also does not have a normal seal button, or "seal bead."

The term, "seal bead," was recently described to me by Frank Wheaton, the past owner of Wheaton Glassworks (a more than 100 year old, family-owned business located in Southern New Jersey).

The float was blown into a mold, likely a 2-piece mold, although it does have a line that intersects the end-to-end mold line and circles the middle of the float. That line is not only hard to see, but on my float, is not raised enough to feel.

The float appears to have been blown into the mold, and the cut off of the glass gather at the blowpipe, was then pressed down, and perhaps heated with a torch to smooth and completely seal the float. I've never seen an authentic float with that type of seal, although the Japanese sometimes twisted and pinched as a way to seal the ball. This is different.

There is a rare variety of Japanese float that is also bullet shaped, and called a "Bullet Roller". It is larger than these little Stokksund Eggs, and has a normal seal button or "seal bead".

The Stokksund Egg Float is a new addition to the many shaped floats that were used in Norway to catch a variety of food fishes. There is news of another new shape recently found. I've been told that it is a Teardrop style of float, and am eagerly awaiting the first photos. At this time, there is only one known example of that float. There have also been a handful of new marks found during this year's Norwegian springtime. One of them is spectacularly embossed, and will be shown soon. It's good to be back on the blog. With good fortune, I'll be able to write again soon.

News From A Blog Reader

2011-03-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

One of the blog's readers has been trying to get in touch with me concerning information about Torvald Strannes' shop in Sweden. The story the reader relayed is taken from the Swedish newspaper, BOHUSLANINGEN, published February 14, 2011.

I used Google Translate to translate the following:

The Fire At Smögen Bridge Extinguished

The fire on Friday completely destroyed a building at Smögen The Bridge is now extinguished.

30 people out of emergency services fought the fire which is believed to have been caused by an overheated wood boiler in the building which is a combined boat house and store. Upstairs are the stores "58 Degrees North" and in the basement was earlier "Hugo's Plumbing". The store was closed for the season

Search and Rescue assisted with extinction from the basin and contributed to the fire never could spread to närligande stalls and shops.

"We must be very pleased," said Office of the rescue director Peter Bergman Bohuslaningen.se

"No one was injured in either fire."

On Friday night, the rescue services searched the property with a thermal imaging camera to ensure that there is no danger of the fire to increase again.

The news is sad, but I do want to thank the reader for taking the time and trouble to relay this information to us.

March, 23rd.

I noticed that there was another comment from the kind reader who informed us of the fire. It was an answer to Todd's comment question concerning what type of fire it was:

"Well a boiler got dry so the system got too hot, and the whole house caught fire. The house has been taken down now, and new one shall be built up."

The thought struck me that here is a perfect example of how we are revealing and keeping the glassfloat history for future generations. Had Roger and Maria not shared their trip to Smøgen, and their visit to Torvald Stranne's daughter, we would not have known of the supply store he once operated, nor would we have seen photos of the shop in operation. Now, the store is completely gone, yet we have a wonderful historical record preserved.

One of a Kind Floats

2011-02-04T14:53:00.001-08:00

I enjoy good stories. Collecting glassfloats, has led me into reading the history of the fishermen who used them, and learning about the people and industries ashore-those who bought, sold and worked in the fishing industry once the catch was landed. I have also been researching the makers of the floats. The reading and research stimulate me.

Nonfiction written in the 1800's about fishermen who sailed the seas to find the shoals of Cod, Herring, Halibut and other edible fish, are tales that have moved me in unexpected ways. I find myself empathizing with the fishermen caught in their sailing craft on rough seas in bad weather, often days and hundreds of miles from the nearest land.

When the cold winter winds blow, when the ocean water temperatures are close to freezing, when it's foggy, or tropical storms and hurricanes surge over the ocean waters, I think about the stories of those fishermen who lived to tell them, and feel some of what they experienced long ago. I find myself thinking about the kind of person who would put themselves in those conditions, and wonder, "would I have done that had I lived in those times, in those places?" I don't commercial fish today, so doubt I would have done it then, but who knows? I once had a Boston Whaler "Squall" sailboat, and will never forget the feeling when the breeze filled the sail, and off my boat and I went. Perhaps another sailboat will come into my life?

Stories of Vikings, and other boat people exploring new seas full of fishes, and strange coastlines where virgin forests grew down the sides of mountains to the sea, allow me a glimpse of the Garden of Eden that was North America. Streams and rivers flowed out of the mountains and valleys into the tidal bays where their waters, teeming with fish-traded with the ocean's water. From those discoveries emerged future settlement along the North American coastline. From those settlements came enterprise, and eventually the introduction of glass fishing floats from Norway and other countries.

Studying glassfloat history brings me to stories remembered and passed on by word of mouth or written down on paper. The passion for "all things floats," has brought me to a place in my life where I have realized a desire.

For most of my life, I've wanted to write something that other people would enjoy reading. As a young boy, I throughly enjoyed reading Treasure Island, ghost stories, Jim Corbett's books about hunting and being hunted by maneating Tigers and Leopards in India, together with all the books about fishing, that I could find in Pennsauken Junior High school's library.

On numerous winter Saturday afternoons during the mid-1950's, I could be found reading the fishing and hunting magazines in the drug store next to the Walt Whitman Movie Theater. They were Saturday afternoons when nasty weather kept most everyone but the druggist and myself at home. His store was very quiet on those days.

The druggist and I kept eachother silent company. Not one word was ever exchanged between us during the many times he allowed me to read the magazines for free. I never saw him look up at me. I peeked over at him from time to time. He was always bent over intently working to fill prescriptions, or talking on the telephone. I worried that he would tell me to scram, tell me that if I wasn't going to buy a magazine, then don't touch them, but he never did.

There were so many fishing spots that I was "seeing" for the first time as I read the authors' descriptions, and looked at the photograpers' pictures in the magazines. As time passed, the desire to be a writer came into my psyche. I could be a fisherman who wrote magazine articles-just like all of the writers who's stories I loved reading. Those afternoons spent in front of the magazine rack are vivid memories for me, and were the catalyst for the wanderlust that eventually led me to glassfloats.

In the spring of 1971, two shipmates and I were safely home from a tour of duty in Vietnam, and living in a party house in San Francisco. One of the guys was a lead guitarist. He played together with two local guys-a bass player and a drummer. The house was always rocking. Friends of my shipmates drove up from Southern California to jam almost weekly. There was a party going on at our house or another group of sailors' house every night. On the weekends there was always a great concert at Winterland. Tickets to see Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Yes, Traffic and other great bands were only three bucks a show.

Our duty station was the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ranger, CVA-61, which was in drydock for 13 months. Living in California and having the opportunity to travel during weekends or during leave-but not having any wheels, I decided to purchase a '71 Volkswagen SuperBeetle. The rear seat back folded down onto the bottom cushion making a large flat base to load all of my fishing and camping gear for trips to the Trinity River, Eagle Lake, King's River...anywhere I wanted to go to in northern, central or southern California.

During weeknights, with my road map of California opened onto the floor, hunched over the map, I would search for a great place to try. As long as the destination was within 250 miles, I could drive to it after Friday duty ended, and be home before midnight on Sunday night. Every Friday afternoon prior to an off duty weekend, the Superbeetle called "Freedom," was packed and ready for two days of discovery. I named that car because she gave me her name and adventure.

After being discharged, I continued living and working in San Francisco. I met my future wife Nancy 8 months after my release. The lust in me to camp and explore, was shared with Nancy as soon as we met. Together, we tried to get lost on the backroads of Northern California during our vacations.

As many of you have read previously, we left San Francisco in our fully packed Volks, with our 6 month old daughter and two tomcats, comfortable in the folded down backseat, on March 12, 1977. We traveled for four adventure-filled months. We camped our way across 23,000 miles starting with a 1-month trip touring the Baja from east to west and north to south to Cabo San Lucas. After that month in the south, we regrouped in San Francisco. From there, we headed north-sojourning our way up the West Coast into British Colombia, across Canada on the Trans Canadian Highway, with a 10-day side trip south into upper Minnesota, then back north into Canada and east until we again drove south through the mountains of Quebec into Maine.

After visiting Nancy's mother's family in Maine, we drove to Southern New Jersey to spend the summer with my family. Two months later, during the major league baseball playoffs, we crossed the United States on the Herbert Hoover Highway, heading for Washington State. Fate landed us in Copalis Beach, Washington. During the previous spring's great adventure, Nancy and I had found our first glass floats while exploring the northwestern tip of Washington State.

We lived in Copalis Beach for eight wonderful years. There I found many glassfloats on the local beaches, and began to seriously collect the floats with great shapes, bubbles, colors and maker's markings. 35 years later, a theme to write about, a theme I had been searching for, happened. I began writing about glassfloats. Prior to glassfloat writing, I had a problem finding the niche that felt good to write within.

Everyday, I write emails to float collecting pals around the world. I'm writing this glassfloat blog, and the occasional glassfloat article. I'm filled with personal happiness thanks to glassfloats and all of the good people who have been part of this odyssey with me. We are sharing something wonderful.

All of us who are keeping the beautiful glass fishing floats safe in our collections, and who are researching and sharing historical knowledge, are also saving and contributing to future history. I believe that the history of floats and their producers was almost lost prior to the first collectors. Amos Wood was the first to enlighten his readers with photos and stories of beachcombers and their floats, history about the makers, the maker's markings and the many locations where floats were used and found. Those first collectors started the process of rescuing the floats and the history which often came to them via word of mouth. Many of today's collectors have been attempting to distill the float's historical fragments into coherence.

The story of the glass fishing float has been unfolding since the first fishermen used and lost them-followed by beachcombers who began to actively hold onto their beachcombed finds. People decorated their European yards and gardens with glassballs. The floats were hung as talismen's in windows to ward off evil spirits' or to beseech the good forces to aid them in the return of their loved ones fishing the seas of Europe or North America. Examples of the early history are being actively dug out of the historical dump by those few of us who are known as "float collectors."

This post's theme is about special floats. As time passes, there will be additions and subtractions to the following hypothesis. Revisions will be necessary.

During the late summer of 2010, Olaf Raab wrote to me about putting together a listing of one-of-a-kind floats. The desire was strong in him to accomplish the listing, and together we began to share our knowledge. In the beginning we included floats that were uniquely marked with the maker's embossing, and also included single floats of unique coloration and/or size. As time has passed we've refined the list to include only those floats with a maker's marking that there is only one known example of.

Emails sent to collectors of European floats have resulted in some excellent photos, as well as input concerning which floats qualified for listing. Perhaps in time we will all get together and produce a list that illustrates one-of-a-kind floats in unique colors and sizes? They too are very worthy of mention and sharing.

Part I of the list we've come up with is as follows:

Norwegian floats

These three are tiny One Knobbed Floats AAV; AV and IN. The first two are from AASNÆS Glasverks, and the IN is thought to be from Namsos Glasverks:

H+M Made aat Berger Glasverks

HV (old type, dark green)

i Float

LA

LI

NV

NY

YS

W backward S

Vallo

Backward S

These are all of the Norwegian "One of a Kinds" that I have photos of. There are others that Olaf has been told exist in Norway. They are:

Two Teardrop floats also known as Lightbulb floats, or Sea Dogs. One is marked AASNÆS; the other is marked with a Dotted L; together with standard round glassballs with the following cachets-
N;
NP;
O;
EG;
VK;
PR and
IV.

This is the end of Part I of the listing. As time permits, "one of a kind" floats from other European countries will be shown on the blog. A number of collectors have contributed photos and information about these floats, and have been waiting patiently for me to post to the blog. I thank you for your contributions and patience, and look forward to having the time to post part II.

Also, this article is posted with the full realization that floats may be missing from the list, or that more than one of these may exist as I write. If you have photos or information that adds to or negates any of the floats shown above and in future posts about this subject, kindly get in touch with me, and we will amend the post.

All of us collectors are looking forward to seeing other unknowns, and also hoping that all of our collections will one day have the second, third...of any of the wonderful floats illustrated above.

An Addendum

2011-02-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

In the last blog post, my theme was great floats coming to me through friendships. In that post is a photo, and brief history of a beautiful amber Japanese Star with Kanji in the star. I could not get over the fact that my good friend-Olaf in Germany-found the float in Europe. Today, I received an email from Olaf. I thought you might enjoy reading what Olaf had to say about that float:

Thank you for the kindly words over me in your blog. I only want to
say something obout the amber "Asian" float. This float I got a long
time ago in change from Stu Farnsworth.
It was a very nice float, but my favorites are bottles and so I brought
this float to you. I think it is better in your collection.

Thank you Olaf for your continued kindness and frienship to me.

My Favorites From 2010

2011-01-21T10:37:00.000-08:00

2010 was a very interesting year for this float collector. I had a couple of changes in my float collecting philosophy, one of which was to begin to further specialize. I decided to concentrate in the future on attempting to find and collect other than round Euros, and if possible, rare colors of marked Euros.

As the year passed, I also realized that my initial desire to collect a historically representative glassfloat collection was causing a problem...lack of display space. I had floats everywhere: baskets of them on the floor; every inch of display cabinets-full; in corners; on end tables; on my dresser... and knew that a change had to be made.

Beginning in the fall, floats were systematically culled, and all of the various sizes with the identical maker's markings were boxed up, and only the best example, whether it be color, mark or size was kept upstairs to be displayed. I worked on it when time premitted, then in early December, spent a couple of days into the mid-night finalizing the displays.

A box of net maker's supplies, found and won at a local auction, contained a selection of sizes of net roping. Having looked for wooden curtain rings, or other suitable rings, and not finding anything that I wanted to invest in to mount the floats on, the idea came to me to make rope coils using the net material in the box. They worked perfectly, and allowed me to display the floats in any position I wished. Now, when I open the cases, nothing moves, and looking into the cases shows the floats' embossings or shapes to perfection.

Also found a corner case at a "going out of business sale," which gave me the extra space necessary to display additional floats. There is a problem though...I'm going to have to be creative in order to add more floats, if they come to me this year. Hmm...knotty problem.

The tide on the Ebay Ocean came in and went out with few big storms to bring in the floats. There were long stretches of nothing special (for the seasoned collectors) appearing on the auctions. Then a period would come when great floats were offered, and excited everyone. That trend has continued into 2011. There have been some really nice uncommon and rare floats so far, but to the Euro collector, no big deal. If you enjoy the Asian floats, as I do too, there have been some exciting floats appearing.

Friendship

2010 is memorable to me because of friendships that continue to grow, and become more meaningful than when they first began. The initial excitement of a new friendship becomes part of many good memories. With the passing of time, the effort to be available to someone, and to share experiences, strengthens the good feelings and thoughts. As I've written a number of times, I am a fortunate man, and because of floats, my life has been enriched by new acquaintances and friends.

My very good friend "the Raven," continues to enliven and enrich my world. Early in the year, he sent an email saying that a box was coming my way, but would not tell me what was inside. He knew that I had been searching and hoping for a particular style of float from Norway. After a long wait, on a Saturday afternoon, our mail carrier stopped in front of the house, and opened the backdoor of her truck. I happened to be sitting at the computer, and saw the goings on from the front window. "The box must have come!"

Immediately, I jumped up, and ran through the house, then outside and down the driveway. As I reached the back of the truck, the mail lady was pulling a huge box toward the doors. Helping her, then holding the box in my two hands, I thanked her and said, "This is the box I've been waiting for-all the way from Norway!"

Once in the house, after putting the box inside the float room, I called Nancy to come join me for the opening, and grabbed my camera. Once I saw the size of the box, I knew what kind of float was inside, but no idea what the float would look like. Once opened, there was no mistaking the float. A bit of a wooden tag was sticking out of the bubble wrapping, and I knew that my friend had sent me the finest example of a Teardrop or Sea Dog, that I could ever wish to have.

When he first got that float, he wrote to tell me about it, and sent a couple of photos. Seeing such an example, complete with the fisherman's attached wooden tag was amazing, and I wrote to the Raven to say how fortunate he was to have such a prize.

Whenever I walk into the float room, it is there in front of me. It continues to surprise me to see it, and never fails to fill me with good feelings toward my Pal in Norway. Thank you again.

Continuing to share our friendship through email thoughts and experiences, the two of us tried to do a big trade. Earlier in the spring, the Raven had been given the opportunity of a lifetime from Mr. M. He sent me photos showing a handful of Large Norwegian Egg floats, and also another handful of one of the rarest shapes to be found in Norwegian floats: what we have been calling the Aasnaes Glasverks One Knobbed float-in two sizes. Those floats were an absolutely incredible haul, which rival the amazing finds that Walt Pich and Woody Woodward have found in Japan.

If the reader remembers or cares to return to the post on the S.H. Davis Brothers patent for a new type of gillnet, then you will see drawings of floats that very much resemble the One Knobs from Aasnaes. Did the Davis brothers copy the design of those floats? There have been no floats found in this country that resemble them, and I suspect that the Davis Boys went to one or more of the European Expositions for money making ideas, and came back with those glassfloats in mind, together with the idea for their gillnet patent. Keep in mind that the S.H. Davis Gillnet float is a direct copy of the Grooved Egg produced in Norway. Which came first, the Davis or the Egg?

During the summer, a big trade was proposed by the Raven for one of only two known tiny One Knobbed Aasnaes floats. We worked his offer over and over again for months, yet could not resolve it. In the meantime, another good pal, Richard Carlson, sent an email saying that he wanted a couple of floats, and Bob Buffington wanted an amber float, and was I interested in purchasing floats to fill a box in order to make the postage worthwhile?

Rich sent some photos of what the seller had, and there in one photo was the larger version of the Aasnaes One Knobbed. I couldn't believe my eyes, and felt certain, that the float had already been sold to the Raven. The photo that the Raven sent in the spring, appeared identical to the photo that Richard sent. I inquired whether the float was actually available, or had it been sold. The return answer from the seller was that it was indeed available.

To continue the friendship thoughts...for many years, I've had a very good customer for my plants, who is also a good friend. My friend/customer has had a poor health condition, and told me about it when I first met him. It's a deadly condition, and worsened significantly over the last year. But you can't keep a good man down, and he continues to run his business, and comes to me for herb plants. I worry about him.

In the spirit of our friendship, the decision was made to purchase a float that would be far more costly then I'm accustomed to spending, but would be the float that whenever I looked at it, would honor him. Suddenly, there was a fantastic float available from Norway through Richard, and I knew that it was the float I had been looking for since the idea to purchase a special one entered my noggin.

Once that decision was made, the float deal was put into my lap, and after a fun series of emails between the seller, Richard and myself, the deal was done, and not only did Rich get the 5-dot Norwegian float that he wanted, but Bob got the terrific amber +P.F.C.+, and I received the beautiful One Knobbed. In the meantime, the trade talks with the Raven continued...to no avail.

In the 2nd. photo, the neck and knobbed end of the float is shown. If you are familiar with what is photographed, you see the pontil mark on the top of the knob. This tells us that the float was blown into a ball, the ball was attached to a pontil rod, the blowpipe was snapped off, and the ball of glass was reheated, tooled and shaped by hand. The final step may have been the application of the seal to cover the hole left from the blowpipe. The seal too has been nicely hand shaped. These floats are a work of art.
Thanks Rich. Thanks Mr. M.

In the fall some things happened between the Raven and myself. We had been unable to make the trade for one of his tiny One Knobbed Aasnaes floats. The Raven called on a Sunday afternoon. Nancy ran outside to give me the telephone. Sitting in the middle of the field on the grass cutting machine, we shared our first telephone conversation. During that talk, the Raven told me that he had sent another package, and that nothing would be broken. A couple of weeks earlier, we suffered when a package from Germany containing four floats arrived. One of the floats was for my friend, and his float together with two others was smashed to smithereens.

10 days later, the big package arrived. Nestled inside a huge batch of safe packaging material sat the little Aasnaes One Knobbed, complete with the Aasnaes marking on the seal button. We had tried so hard to make a trade for it. Things got in the way, especially my reluctance to part with a special float which came from my German benefactor's personal collection. If I could have parted with it, the trade would have happened. We decided to put the trade talks on hold, but the Raven wanted me to have the very rare and tiny Aasnaes One Knobbed. It is the only other one that he knew of, and his desire was that both of us have one. What have I done to deserve such a friend? In return, I was able to get him a rare netted Pat. Pending American Teardrop. It's not enough, but he knows how I feel. Maybe time will give me another opportunity to do something really fine for my Pal?

Two floats that were written about at the beginning of the year, are also part of my favorites:
They are impossible to separate-the two colorless Hovik Knobbed floats. While they count for two floats, I'm going to count them as one toward the favorites from last year. In order to do my favorites justice, I've got to go over the 5-6floats that Bruce Gidoll proposed. Pretty certain that you readers understand, and sympathize with my predicament. Don't you?

Those floats also came from the Raven. Have you gotten the picture by now? Richard Carlson, Bob Buffington, and myself had a terrific year, and could not have realized so much beauty in our collections were it not for the Raven. He is the "Float Collector Extraordinaire"

Let's see now, I've written about the Teardrop/Sea Dog, the small and large Aasnaes One Knobbed, and the pair of colorless Hoviks. There's still more to go, but I'm up to five, and I can't stop now. I guess I'm going to have to fudge the numbers a bit.

Thanks go out again to Stu Farnsworth who years ago, introduced me to a man in Germany. In Stu's email, he said that this man had been a big help to him when he collected Euros. The reader may remember my bottle collecting friend Olaf from past posts? He and his wife Isabella have become close to Nancy and I. Olaf sends me at least two to three offers a year of floats he has found on trips to find very old European bottles. We've developed a very nice correspondence and friendship across the sea, in which we keep up with eachother's lives, children and grandchildren. It's a warm relationship, and hopefully, the day will come when we meet in person.

One of the most beautiful floats that Olaf found and offered to me, was also a very big surprise. It's an Asian float, that somehow turned up in Europe-a beautiful little amber Star on the seal with Kanji writing inside the star. As soon as I saw the photo, there was no doubt about it. I definitely wanted to purchase that beauty. I never tire of holding and looking at this beautiful little float, and am constantly amazed that Olaf found it in Europe.

Now, there are six floats displayed as being my favorites of last year, but there's one more. When asked by Bruce Gidoll whether this float would be listed in my 2010 floats, I said:

"Bruce, I don't know. I think of this float as being a 'cross-over' float."

Bruce asked: "why do you call it that?"

"Well, I did purchase the float in 2010, but it didn't arrive until 2011."

The beauty and good fortune I had in first finding, then winning, and having the float arrive in perfect shape, demands of me that I share it with you. First, a bit of the story behind it.

During Christmas shopping time, I had promised to spend Sunday shopping with Nancy for our grandchildren. Responsibilities came first. By the early afternoon they were finished. Nancy was putting her makeup-on which gave me a bit of time to look at the auctions. I went to the biggest float site on Ebay, and after not finding anything new to get excited over, decided to check the ending auctions. Once in a while I miss something good. That proved to be the case.

An auction advertised as "a pair of Japanese floats," caught my eye. What got me was the photo. It was so unlike the normal photo, and the thought came to me to open the auction up. The seller's photo showed four pictures in a longitudinal line. I could not separate them. The photos had been photoshopped into one long photo. Taking advantage of the enlarging feature on Ebay, put my cursor on them, and left clicked. Starting from the top, and cruising down to the bottom, suddenly, in the bottom photo, I thought I was seeing an amazing maker's marking.

The photo of the marking was not very clear due to the texture of the float's glass, and if I was seeing it correctly, the mark was upside down. Using the magnifying feature on the page, first at 150%, then 200% and finally 400%, I still wasn't 100% certain that I was seeing a mark or not.

Excitedly, got up from the chair, and grabbed Stu and Alan's book from the bookcase. Sitting in front of the computer, book open to the illustration in the book, I called Nancy to come and take a look with me. Describing to her what was in the book, then showing her the photo, then pointing to the book's drawing, we both agreed that the photo had the mark upside down. We sat there and looked closely. All of the ending buds on the illustration appeared to be in the right spots, and Nancy and I thought that we were looking at a Russian Hammer & Sickle float.

If right, this was the very first time, in years of looking at many many thousands of Ebay float auctions, that I had ever seen one. What to do? We were going shopping, the auction ended that evening, and there was no guarantee that we would be home in time for the auction's ending. The decision was made to go for it, and to make a good solid bid.

There were a few bidders, one with a high number and obviously a float buyer, who led. My bid was entered. The notice appeared, and read that I was the high bidder. Would it stand up? Would others have noticed, and thought the same thing that I did? Only time would tell. We left to go shopping.

It was difficult to put that auction out of my mind. We had very good luck finding many nice gifts for our four grandchildren, and returned home. As soon as we got in, I looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes to go until the auction's end. Quickly, the computer was turned on, and after booting up, I was able to get to the auction. Still in the lead, and no one had bid against me since the afternoon.

I kept looking at the photo, and even photographed it, downloaded it, and tried to photoshop it, but could not be certain if I was actually seeing a Hammer & Sickle. Three minutes to go, and the final countdown. Do I bid higher? After thinking about it, the answer was, "no, you've bid as high as taking a chance is worth."

Two minutes to go. One minute to go. No one else had bid. 30 seconds-nothing. 10, 9, 8, ....5, 4, 3, someone bid high, and they almost caught me. The auction ended, the Ebay message came across the top of the screen. "You've won! Next step is to pay the seller."

Gees! That cost me a lot. What did I win?

The seller sent an invoice, I paid it, and the wait began. The float did not arrive before we left to visit our family in Texas. I had cancelled our mail until we returned. Would the float be there when we came home in 8 days?

It wasn't, but two emails from the seller, emailed to me earlier in the day-were. Due to an innocent mistake, the seller did not realize that the auction had been paid for, and promised to send the float right away. Another 10 days elapsed, and finally, 8:00 on a Saturday morning, a FedEx truck pulled into the driveway, and the driver put a large box on our porch. It was a very early delivery. The driver was trying his best to beat a winter snow storm. Snow had already started falling briskly.

With camera in hand, I began to photograph first the box, then the first sight inside, (the seller was very kind to me, and wrapped that pair of floats in so much bubblewrap, that there was no way anything could have happened to either of the floats). Taking one of the floats out of the box, I started carefully unwrapping the plastic. Round and round, I unwound the wrapping until he float finally appeared. The float was sideways in the opened bubblewrap, but there was no mistaking what I was looking at. It was the very old and very hard to find Russian Hammer & Sickle. Nancy was all smiles, and so was I. Quickly, photos were taken in front of my favorite window with snow fall for backlighting.

Before I forget, the second float is also a beauty. It's very greenish aqua (a lot of iron oxide in the sand used for the glass mix), and is embossed with the Japanese characters which mean "special." A nicely ironic twist there.

What a year!

Thank you to everyone who shared in this fun series of posts. Best wishes to you and yours in 2011.

2010 Collectors' Favorites Continued...

2011-01-19T21:53:00.000-08:00

From Roger and Maria Brun:

Here are some photos of glass floats added to our collection in 2010. These are our favorites.

The first picture is of a 5 inch S marked float, possibly from Survig or Sorvik glassworks-1808 or 1809-1821. This may prove to be difficult when considering that the first commercial floats were credited to Hadeland Glasverks approx. 1840/41. In the background of the photo is a dark brown large egg float similar to Richard's large egg. These two floats were purchased from Mr. M. from northwestern Norway. Many good and rare floats have come from him.

Two of us have been doing quite a bit of communication concerning Aasnaes Glasverks. There is reason to believe that Aasnaes was also producing in the beginning of glassfloat production in Norway. At this point there is no concrete proof of that idea. The thought is based on conjecture, the types of floats produced by Aasneas and the glassverk's proximity to the seafishing. Hadeland Glasverks is located on a fiord, far from the sea, and Cod fishing, but is closer to the Oslo/Christiania markets, and Sweden. One gets the impression that Aasnaes was in more direct communication and sales with the fishermen, while Hadeland had more contact with buyers. One day, a sales receipt, diary account or another written proof will surface.

The second photo is of two floats marked with an H. The smaller 3” is an Asian float that we purchased on ebay, and was sent to us from New York. The bigger 5” float we purchased from Mr. M.-together with the S marked and egg float in June 2010. The Norwegian H mark may have been made at Hestviken glassworks-1849 until 1857.

Next, is a photo of a reddish brown 3” Torvald Stranne. This one is of a thick glass, and heavier than the other 3” TS floats in our collection. Maria and I found this float at an antique store in Stockholm, November 2010. The Torvald Stranne floats may have been produced by the makers of Bjorkshult. or Albrectsons floats, and was most likely made during the Contemporary period from mid-1950 until 1970.

In October 2010 we made a trade of several floats with our friend Todd. A 2.5” Grooved Japanese, a Torpedo Roller and this huge Jumbo Roller is what came out of the trade and found their way to Norway. These are really cool floats and are among the favorites in the collection, a big thanks to Todd.

The other two small floats in the photo of 5 floats came all the way from Hawaii to Norway. They were won on an ebay auction. They are a 2” Boxed DG and a 2,5” float with a big star on the sealing button.

All the Best in the year 2011,
Roger and Maria

From Todd Marvik, the "Norsknailpounder":

I'll have to say that getting floats from our mutual friend in Norway, has got to be the tops. However, there are some floats that are not so rare and old which stand out as well.

So, I will say that the five floats that I want to mention are:

The N> marked float mentioned in AR/SF book is my favorite. Most likely from Namsos Glasverks, and from the 1850s. There seems to be a line of these floats starting with the mark AN, and continuing up the alphabet. I've been lucky to get a few of these Namsos floats, and all are from the 1850's.

I have a float that a friend from Portugal signed and sent to me, this would be my second favorite. It's marked with a 5 over 115, and likely Portuguese. I know it's not a rare one, but Hector took the time to sign it, and that makes it a favorite and special to me.

Third on my list of favorites is a float obtained in a 2010 trade with Roger & Maria. It's a really nice clear dogneck in a net. I haven't had one in a net before.

Fourth on my list of favorites are a trio of floats bought from a seller on Ebay. All three floats are in nets, and marked B over V. Most likely French-made, and are unusual to me, because they come from a seller living in the USA. I took one of the cap nets off, and I'm not sure, but there looks like they have some writing on them. I have some more research to do on them for sure!

The V over B or B over V floats normally are found in green glass, but Ken Busse had a beautiful example in a slightly sunturned color. Also, these floats are not only marked on the side of the glass, but are also found with the embossing on the float's glass seal, which can also be called the "cachet".

Lastly, I bought a float from David Neff. It's marked LV and has a bit of blue swirling in it. I've been wanting one for some time.

Lets hope this year we have another good year for our collections !

All the best Todd.

It was quite unexpected when after winning the first Swirled LV early in 2010, a second example of the same marking with blue swirls appeared later in the year. Now, we learn that a third example came to Todd. Never seen before, suddenly three were found in one year. Here are two photos each of the 1st. then the 2nd. Blue Swirled LV's found last year:

Thank you Roger, Maria and Todd for taking the time to send your photos and commentary of your favorites from the last year.

I hope to receive a couple of additional replies for this topic. If nothing else is received, the next posting will show my favorites.

2010 Favorites from Bob Buffinton and Paul Scott

2011-01-16T09:48:00.000-08:00

From Bob Buffington:

This is the true story of how I found one of my most treasured floats. Before Rich and I figured out how to find floats on the Carribean Islands we travel to, I met one of the oldest men on the Island. He is truly an amazing individual who has spent his entire life living off the land and sea. When I first met him, I bought a beautiful sea shell he had on a table in his home. While there, I asked him if he ever found any glass balls. In his gravely voice he apologized that no, “all the great ones are gone”, “all I find now are the little ones”. Bingo! I told him I didn’t care what size they were, I would buy any that he found. For about three or four years-every time I went to visit him, he had a gunny sack with 10 or 15 floats in it. On one trip as I was going through his bag, I pulled out the amber/yellow swirled float. He apologized because he said, “it is messed up”. He would not let me pay him for it. Amazing!!

Every year amazes me more than the last as I get the opportunity to meet more and more collectors. Through Tom and Rich I met a great and very knowledgeable gentleman from Norway. We corresponded several times, sharing float collecting philosophy and sharing personal collection information. Later, we assembled some trade possibilities that turned out being mutually beneficial. I can’t really say that one single float that I received was my favorite, so I have included a photo of a group that traveled across the Atlantic to my home in the heartland.

A great float that came my way in 2010 was not a personal find, but came by way of many connections. The float found its way to me as a result of a purchase arranged by Rich and Tom from a gentleman near the far north end of Norway.

It traveled in a box with other floats to Tom, who then sent the remaining floats on to Rich, who then removed the floats that he wanted, and sent home the remaining floats with my son Evan for me to check out.

When Tom purchased a bunch of amber floats in the deal, he told Rich that there was a marked one. Knowing that I would love to have a marked amber float, Rich asked Tom, "Could Bob have that one, since he started the whole amber float purchase?" In that well traveled box was a great surprise!! A stunning, brown/swirled 3 inch +P.C.F.+. What a great couple of guys.

From the author: No problem there! It was a perfect opportunity to say "thank you Bob for your friendship, and the great invitation and adventure in the fall of 2009. After seeing Bob's beauty, you can bet I took a number of photos and yearn to have one myself someday!

Two trips with Rich stand out in my mind. The first trip that Rich and I found floats was in 2005. He found the brown one on our island, then later that same vacation/work trip, we went out on a boat with a good friend of mine-Scott Cornell and his wife Angie.

We went to a small neighboring inland, boating through a nice cooling rain on the way. We had no idea what to expect. Once on the shore the great hunt began. Neither, Rich nor I knew much about floats at the time other than we wanted to hunt and find them.

After walking just a few yards from the boat my friend Scott held up a perfect yellow amber ball and said, “is this what we’re looking for”? "@#!* Yea," I responded, "that’s right." Then just a little further along I looked down and here was this float with lots of letters on the surface looking right at me. Only later, did I realize that I had found the venerable Vetreria Montelupo F VAS in like new condition!

When Rich and I feel we are in a “hot spot” we will change the lead from time to time so one person doesn’t get all the virgin territory. As usual it was very hot, we were trying to get back to the boat on time to avoid being trapped by the tides. We trudged through soft sand that was like walking through a 12” soft snow. We sat down to take a break under a Cassarina tree, and Rich said, “Buff why don’t you take the lead”. I did and that’s when I found my first “Great One”, and my first and only “Golden Amber” float. Thanks to Rich!

From Paul Scott:

Hi Tom,

12" Pumpkin. Very interesting floats. No one at this time, has been able to reveal evidence as to who or where the maker originated from. Are these floats Japanese, Korean, Chinese?

These photos show my 14 1/2" Daiichi Glass Fused "Sunburst" DG in circle

10" Japanese Blue Dot A wonderful and hard-to-get float in this size.

Japanese Ice Blue This one has a beautiful Maker's Mark, but Paul couldn't photograph it without the sun's reflection blowing the mark up in a ball of glare.

3" Blue Snakeskin The Snakeskin floats are few in number. They were produced for use as an attractor for Octopus, and Squid, and were expensive to make. The fishermen found that they were no more effective at catching then the basic aqua roller was, so they were not purchased or produced in large numbers. A complete collection of the colors: red, green, orange, blue and golden amber are very difficult to obtain. There are only a few complete collections known.

The Bullet Roller is another mystery float. Walt Pich has written that none of these have been found beachcombed on mainland Japanese beaches, or found in Japanese gear piles. They have been found on North American Pacific beaches and on the beaches of Pacific islands. They are one of the rarest forms of rollers.

Medium Jumbo These are a slightly smaller version of the Japanese Jumbo Rollers. There is an interesting story of the Jumbo Rollers having been used in a clandestine drug trade. According to Walt Pich they were developed to replace the wooden barrel markers on longlines. Just as the Norwegians developed the very large Teardrop float aka Lighbulb or Sea Dog floats-to replace wooden barrels, the Japanese developed the Jumbo Rollers, which were first made about or prior to 1920.

Wooden barrels were used for a very long time to mark all types of fishing gear, but because they often became waterlogged, it did not take long for large glassfloats to replace them. Once again, I am wondering if the large Demijohn, or other large shaped bottles were used as markers at a very early time? Not every fisherman could afford them though, so they are small in number, and considered to be top shelf floats in any collector's collection.

Todd Marvik, and Roger & Maria Brun have sent in commentary and photos for the next blog post of favorites. I'm very happy that the responses I've gotten have all said how much fun the readers are having with this idea of Bruce Gidoll's.

Here are two additional photos, the first is of a complete collection of Japanese Snakeskins, the second is of a very rare Swedish Snakeskin from Enerdya Glassworks.

Here Comes More Favorites Floats From 2010

2011-01-13T15:57:00.000-08:00

Two additional collectors have sent me their favorites from 2010, Olaf Raabe and Stu Farnsworth. The floats are coming in!

Since Olaf and Stu's submissions, there are promises from at least 4-5 additional collectors. Can't wait to post them.

Included in this post is some information that I've been saving for years. I've wanted to reveal this with you since first discovering a description of Swedish Salmon line fishing using glassfloats, while studying for the post about the first American-made floats. Certain that sooner or later, I was going to do a post about Dog Necked floats, until now, I've written very little about them. David from Sweden, sent me the wonderful photo of a Swedish marker buoy seen above. Inside that "kavelhund-like" wooden frame are two Dog Necks or Dog Floats, end to end. Such a beautiful piece of float history!

How Dog Neck floats were used to fish for Salmon has been a mystery. Although I cannot be 100% certain that the drawings found below show Dog Neck floats. The shape in the drawings, leads me to believe they could be no other style of Swedish float. Also, I can easily deduce from the description, that the neck on this style of float would have been perfect to tie the lines to in order to have the Herring baits sway in the current-attracting the Salmon with a realistic-looking presentation.

If my deduction is correct, then the Swedish fishermen were using Dog Floats prior to 1884. As I've written a few times before, it is no stretch-at least in my mind- that the first Dog Floats were nothing more than Demijohn bottles with a glass seal. Could they have been used prior to 1800? That style of bottle dates quite a bit earlier than 1800.

From Olaf Raabe,

Hi Tom

2010 was a good year, having got a number of new rare euros in my collection.
I have picked out a few to share with your readers:

BN
One out of many Norwegiana letter floats I have got this year.
They are all dated between 1850 and 1880, and made by different glassworks in Namsos area in Norway.
This float was received in a trade with my good Norwegian friend, "Bottleman." We have been having a very good time this year exchanging bottles for floats, and also having a wonderful dialogue about the Norwegian glassverks.

JGO,
Was offered from France and USA respectively, and won on Ebay-auctions.
The JGO float was written about in one of last year's final blog posts, and is very interesting because of the placename on the embossing: "Savill."

The CM is almost an unbelievable float. This is the first time one has been seen to my knowlege, and is not a Christiania Magasin marking. This float comes from a country other than Norway.

The LX is now being considered as a French-made float. This particular embossing has one dot to the right of the L, with the X. Is there another one known of? Sometimes the L marked floats have a dot on either side of the L. Were the L floats made by the same glassworks as the LV's were?

Olaf's JS is almost identical to the author's brown/amber JS. Comparing floats with Olaf leads me to believe that both are of heavier than normal float glass, both are bottom heavy. The only difference may be in the look of the glass.

The author's float has that unmistakeable Portugese look that is often seen. I'm attempting to describe what appears to be thumb-like indentations pressed into the glass, but there is absolutely no texture to the outside of the float. Those circular formations are inside the float's glass. I only know of Portugese floats with that type of glass.

DOGNECKS
These beautiful euro-dognecks surround 3 old Norwegian one-knobbed from the glassworks in Namsos. The Dog Neck or Dog floats seem to have been primarily used in Sweden and on the islands of Denmark.

All the best from
Glassfloat-collector extraordinar

From the author: Whenever I've found information about Dog Neck Floats, the literature states that their use was in fishing for Salmon, but how were they used for this type of fishing? Why did they need a float in the shape of a Dog Neck Float in order to fish for Salmon? Why wouldn't a typical round ball have sufficed? I've been saving illustrations and the description found in: the "REPORT of the COMMISSIONER of fISH AND fISHERIES 1884,waiting for the opportunity to share it with you. Now, seems like the perfect time.

Here is a description of how they fished for Salmon, and I believe Dog Neck floats are the glassfloats used:

The Salmon Fisheries-These fisheries belong exclusively to the east and south coasts of Skane. In the Sound and on the west coast there are no salmon fisheries, although salmon are occasionally caught there with bottom-nets and codfish-nets. It therefore seems that the salmon do not migrate from the Baltic to the Cattegat and vice versa. salmon are caught in the sea with seines, floating nets, and lines, each of these apparatus being peculiar to some part of the coast.

The line fisheries begin in autumn after the herring fisheries have come to a close, and are continued throughout the winter, as long as the weather does not interfere with them. These lines (Fig 18) are constructed so that they can float near the surface, and are fastened only at one end, while the other is free and is swayed by the current. That portion which holds the apparatus in its place is called the rope, and is fastened at the bottom by a large stone. After the stone has been sunk, about a fathom of the rope is hauled up, and a glass floats is fastened to it. About 12 fathoms above this a second float is fastened, and about 5 fathoms below this the line is attached to the rope. It is kept floating near the surface by four wood or cork floats. At present, each line measuring 30 fathoms, has only three hooks. These hooks, of tinned-iron wire, are tolerable large (8 centimeters long and with a span of about 4 centimeters), and are baited with herring which are cut back of the anal aperture, and are fastened to the hook so that its point passes through the eyes and protrudes at the side. The salmon lines are set with a sufficiently large distance between them to prevent their becoming entangled when they are swayed to and fro by the current. The first glass float serves to keep the rope up in the water, and to prevent the current from carrying it too far from its original position. These lines are set at a depth of from 20-30 fathoms; the farther from the coast the better. As long as the water is still warm in autumn the hooks have to be baited afresh everyday. When the water gets colder the herring keep three or four days without turning sour. If the bait is not entirely fresh, the salmon will not bite. In the autumn fisheries four men go out in a boat with from 40 to 60 salmon lines. (that's a lot of Dog Neck floats...)

During the stormy and dark season of the year these fisheries are both dangerous and uncertain, but pay well because the apparatus is cheap, as a line costs only from 3 to 5 crowns (8o cents to $1.34). The success of these fisheries greatly depends upon the weather. The salmon also seem in some years to leave one part of the Baltic and go to another. On the south coast of Skane the method of catching salmon with lines has been almost entirely abandoned, because scarcely any were caught.

P.S. Just in case you were wondering...from Wikipedia comes this:

Scania ( Skåne (help·info) in Swedish) is the southernmost[3] of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces (landskap) of Sweden, constituting a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, and some adjacent islands. The modern administrative subdivision (län) Skåne County[4] is almost, but not totally, congruent with the province. The largest city is Malmö, which is also the third largest in Sweden and the administrative centre of Skåne County.

From Stu Farnsworth:

Hi Tom,

Here are a few scans of the gems I was able to get in 2010.

The Sun Colored Knobby came thru a trade for one of my better rare floats.

When the blog author got his first Knobbed Egg, I sent a photo of it to Woody aka: 2Fishing2. Woody replied that wasn't the same Knobbed float that he knew of, which confused me. It wasn't until seeing floatos of Japanese Knobbies that I understood what Woody was referring to. They are sometimes hard to tell from the Norwegian Knobbed Egg, except for the color. The Japanese Knobbies are most often either colorless or sunturned. Most of the Norwegian Knobbed Eggs are green glass. The early Norwegian Knobbed Eggs have been said to have been produced earlier than the 1840's, although at this time, there is no proof of that. One thing is certain, they were first produced long before the Japanese started making them after 1910.

From the number of photos of the Japanese Knobbies that I've seen online, and the very few that have come to Ebay auction beaches, the Knobbies may be rarer than the Norwegian Knobbed Eggs.

My very early Red Snakeskin came in a purchase.

My 14er Honey Amber Akita marking came in a purchase.

The large orange sized cherry red Hokuyo float came in a purchase in September.

The Green Pumpkin has 8 patches came in a purchase.

Stu

Now, we wait for other contributions to arrive. Hopefully in the next two days other great float collectors will be sending me their favorites to share with you. All of the photos above can be enlarged for greater clarity and enjoyment.

2010 Collector's Favorites

2011-01-08T10:31:00.000-08:00

In the last blog post, Bruce Gidoll asked if other collectors might submit 5-6 of their favorite floats collected during the year. I emailed all of the collectors on my email list, a request for submissions. These are the first three to arrive.

From Kelly James:

Hi there,

As I mentioned in my comment on your blog, I've only been collecting glass floats for a short time. I first discovered them on the blog: Completely Coastal, and from there I found Kamichia at Glass Float Junkie.

I've purchased floats from Kamichia, an Etsy seller called "Lightinawormhole", and a few from EBay. I got a great deal on EBay a couple of months ago - 3 floats for 0.99! Unfortunately, one of them broke in transit, but the seller sent me a replacement for it (my only Korean float).

And that's my little float collection,
Kelly

From Frank Wheaton:

Hi Tom....

I'm not set up to send photos, but here's a photo of floats from around the Bahamas on my lawn in Exuma. I'm partial to large floats (Great Ones) as you know. My favorite day in the past few years occurred when two fellas showed up at my boat in Cat Island with two pickup trucks full of large floats. I spent the day cleaning them.

Frank, his partner Liz have also been hiking in the dunes on some hard-to-reach Bahama islands. Last summer, Frank sent some photos of floats beachcombed there.

Last October, Nancy and I were invited to join Gay and Barry Taylor together with Frank and Liz for Sunday brunch at Frank's wonderful home. Before the other guests arrived, Frank took the time to show me many of the floats he's found in the Bahamas.

He had asked me to bring some American glassfloats with me for discussion. The six of us had a great time discussing Eastern glassblowing companies. The discussion was greatly enhanced by the combined perspective of Gay and Frank's knowledge. Frank's personal experience working in his family's glassworks gave me a rare insight too. He is the past president of Wheaton Glassworks, and Gaye is the past president of the American Glass Museum. I've never enjoyed a brunch more than that one. Great company and excellent discussions throughout the morning and early afternoon.

Richard Carlson and I shared a couple of fun hours trading emails. Richard wanted to share his 5 favorites. He would send me one short story, and a photo or two of each favorite. I would copy his photos to my files, then cut and paste his narrative to the blog. After finishing, and returning to my emails, another batch would arrive from Richard. It went on like that until early in the afternoon. Thanks for the fun Rich!

From Richard Carlson:

For my first float I would choose a mirrored S and V.

For many years my good friend Bob has invited me to join him and some other friends for 10 days of working and playing at his home in the Caribbean. Over the years, Bob started my glass float passion' and together we have learned to hunt glass floats in some spectacularly remote places.

This year the target was a small cay about 1/4 mile long he called the Hot Dog. The plan was for Bob, Jim, Kenny, and myself to use two inflatable boats to paddle about a mile and a half to the Hot Dog Cay. For those of you who have powered a small inflatable boat with a plastic paddle-you know the meaning of frustration. It was July and the temperature was in the 90's. The humidity was about the same. As we pulled in to the cay we all had good healthy heart rates. No sooner had we switched to dry shoes than Jim found a float. Rocks, sticks, junk, sticks, cactus, spiders, vines, mangroves, BALL. There's a lot more to this story, but this is one of my favorite floats of the year. Anyone know where it is from or recognize the mark? Looks French to me, but I would appreciate anyone with true knowledge.

For my second favorite of the year, I would choose this large Norwegian egg.

The writer of this blog has been quite kind in introducing me to long time collectors with long time experience to match. Early last year, he introduced me to a very good man in Norway with a tremendous collection. To my amazement, I possessed a few floats that he did not, and we were able to make some trades. It was very hard to pick a favorite from the many floats he sent my way. He improved my collection greatly in 2010, and I thank him.

This float may be an anathema to you glass purists out there, but it's one of my favorites. It's a Neversink GB8 used as a lobster float in New England. I know the glass is perfect underneath-protected by the paint for decades. I know with some paint stripper and a power washer it would be brand new, but I just can't do it.

So dark a brown that it takes full sun to see through this float.

This is the first dark brown Wilhelmshutte float that the author had seen. Many years ago, I was fortunate to have acquired an 8" dia. "W In The House," which is a golden brown with streaks of dark brown in the glass. Later this fall, I was offered an identical float to Richard's dark brown Wilhelmshutte. It too came directly from Germany. Normally, this float is found in green glass, but Richard has also had the great luck to have collected a beautiful aqua marine example to go along with his dark brown beauty. Rich's photo of the aqua marine example can be seen on the website: www.norwayfloat.com. On the right hand side of the page is a column of float markings. Click on Wilhelmshutte, and you will find many fine floatos there.

My last favorite float acquired in 2010, is this "traveling brown."

No pedigree here, but I found it on the beach-buried in pine needles with only a disk the size of a half dollar showing. Perhaps having landed there after a ride across the ocean from a torn net in Portugal? It was found the first year Bob and I got far enough away from civilization to find floats.

Tom introduced me to Bruce Gidoll last year, and over the course of several months-a friendship formed. So did a massive trade involving many floats, a display case, and a drive to Vermont. In the midst of all this excitement I traded my float away.

A strange thing happened. I really missed that float. It so happened, that in the same excitement, Bruce traded me one of his favorites-a beautifully swirled 5" Japanese float. It was so heavy that I put it in the sink to see if in fact it did float.

Late in 2010, Bruce and I intimated that we both missed our traded floats, so traded back. Reacquired in 2010-it's done traveling for a while.

P.S. If you wish to see the float photos in greater detail, put your cursor on the photo you wish to see, left click and the photo will enlarge.

Bruce Gidoll's Favorites of 2010

2011-01-05T18:52:00.000-08:00

Bruce and I have known eachother for over three years. Many thanks to Kamichia's Website, "GLASSFLOAT JUNKIE." On her site, a beautifully shaped light lavender Japanese float is shown. When Bruce saw it, he wanted to know how to contact me. A mutual friend-Stu Farnsworth-gave Bruce my email address. Stu knows that I am always eager to meet anyone who shares our passion for glass fishing floats.

One Sunday afternoon, a surprise email from Bruce started our communication. In the email, Bruce included his telephone number, and asked me to phone him. Starting with that first telephone conversation, we've enjoyed comparing notes on floats we bid on, trade, and enjoy as often as we can. As time has passed, it has been our custom to phone eachother at least once a week. Last spring we finally met in person.

A few days prior to April 27th. Richard Carlson, and his wife Peggy, had taken a trip east to visit family. On the 27th. in a rental car, they traveled from Virginia northward to New Jersey to meet Bruce and his wife Lupe in Atlantic City. Bruce and Lupe were in the resort enjoying the casinos. After picking them up at their hotel, the four drove to our home for a visit. Too short of a visit. Together with my wife Nancy, the six of us had a great time. Of course Richard, Bruce and I were all about the floats in my collection, and quickly left the ladies to go hang out in my float room.

During the first week of last November, Nancy and I flew to Boston, rented a car, and drove to Bruce and Lupe's house for a two-day visit. It didn't take long for Bruce, Lupe, Nancy and I to make our way into the cellar where Bruce had set up a display of his largest floats and other floats that would not fit into his displays. It doesn't take very long for collectors to share the common malady of never having enough display space, does it! The first float that I held was one of Bruce's massive Japanese Scallop floats. The Japanese are farming Scallops, and use incredibly huge (over 50" circumference) floats in that operation.

Following our time in the basement, we went back upstairs to the 2nd. story where Bruce has his float room. One of Bruce's favorites greets you at the door. It's an absolutely beautiful large Blue with cobalt swirls Japanese float. The float was recently obtained from Betty-a wonderful Australian seller who's auctions are often seen on Ebay.

The rare colored floats start with that float, and never quit. As Bruce likes to say, "I'm a collector who doesn't care about marks, I only care about color." Not only does Bruce have undoubtably the finest collection of rare colored floats in the world, but also wonderful shapes and Barnacled floats.

Having been in the collecting game for many years, he is friends with or knows all of the major Japanese floats collectors in the world, and has traded with all of the greats who are no longer with us, as well as those "old timers," who are still finding, buying and trading the world's rarest floats. His collection is just a joy to behold. There are so many floats that I will never forget seeing, and will always be happy to have held in my hands.

For hours during the next two days, much of the time would find me on my back, left hand and arm holding a float aloft, in an effort to backlight it using the ceiling light. While holding a float, I would also be doing my best with my right hand to take a floato of each magnificently colored or shaped beauty.

As I photographed, Bruce told stories non-stop, about where this float came from, where that one came from, trades, stories about collectors and their collections and the rare ones he had in the past that were traded for this float, or that float...

It was two days of bliss sharing our float time. Together, the four of us enjoyed every minute visiting favorite places in the town that Bruce and Lupe live in, sharing delicious meals, conversations and friendship. Hopefully, we'll enjoy another visit with them at our home this spring. I've got a new case, and new float displays that Bruce is dying to see, and I'm wanting to show him.

Richard Carlson and Bruce also share a fine friendship. I was the lucky one who had the opportunity to introduce them to eachother, and have enjoyed the two of them sharing stories of their adventures with me. Richard is a master carpenter, and as you look at the photos, one case stands out. It is shaped like a sail, and is one of at least two that Richard has built. He also spent a long weekend with Bruce installing a lighting system for him. It's an amazing electrical installation which lights up all the of cases' shelves. Each float is backlit beautifully. And Richard and I share a special place in common in Bruce and Lupe's town- The Bobcat Grill, a restaurant and brewery.

The other day, Bruce sent me the following email for the blog. He wondered if I might write about his favorite floats-added to his collection during 2010. He also hopes that others who collect and frequent this blog, might also contribute their favorite floats and photos from the last year? On behalf of Bruce's idea and wish, do email me with your favorite floats added to your collection in 2010, and include photos. I'll be adding a few of mine soon, but would rather feature your's first.

The following are Bruce's favorites:

Hey there Tom,

Thought about doing this Best list for my floats obtained in 2010, and hope you and other collectors will do the same.

In 2010...52 Floats were obtained on ebay and trading. The top 5 in the order in which they were obtained:

1)Feb...16 X 13 inch wide Pear float-Japanese Colorless;

2)May...20 inch long by 13 inch wide Huge green teardrop-pear from England;

3)June...45 inch Cobalt deep Blue swirl from Australia-Japanese;

4)July...Black Euro-Grapefruit size with seam-Redish when held to light and

5)Oct...41 inch Violet with Red Net-Japanese.

2010 was a great year for me. Hope it was for you too, and 2011 is even better.

All the best,
Bruce

Enjoy the photos of some of Bruce's great floats, and do share some of your's with the other readers. That would be fun.

January 4th. 2011 Reflection

2011-01-03T09:55:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon,

I've been wanting to write a big glassfloat post to welcome in the New Year, and to say, "Good Bye," to the old. Instead, I want to share myself with you in another way. The glassfloat posts will come. Hopefully, you will appreciate today's writing.

Yesterday, as I downloaded photos from our visit to our little "Texas Family," some photos on our Kodak program, which Nancy had put on a CD as a Christmas present to our daughter Chloe, appeared. They caught me by surprise. There are many others, but these captured a time in my life.

We were living in San Francisco, and decided to leave to explore the country, Baja and Canada to find a home. Our son Morgan had not been born yet.

Morgan Gareth is a Welsh name meaning, "Gentle By The Sea." He was born in the living room of our cabin in Copalis Beach, Wa. The room overlooked the Copalis River as it flowed into the sea. We had a home birth on purpose. He was born in 1982.

Our beautiful daughter Chloe was our first love child. She was born in San Francisco, and lived her first 6 months with us in the nicest little apartment one can imagine. We had a wonderful backyard filled with flowers and vegetables. The ocean was only a block away, and Golden Gate Park was also a block away in a different direction.

We needed to build our lives with a home, but could not afford one in San Francisco after a job I wanted did not materialize. So we left mid-March of 1977. First stop, a month in Baja, Mexico. 23,000 miles later our last stop in the fall of that year, Copalis Beach, Wa. There we started our lives as a family with a home, which came to us a year after arriving there.

I am filled with nostalgia-a bit of saddness because this is my 65th. year on the earth, and I'm feeling the reality of getting old now. As I look back at those photos, I realize the beauty of youth that our little family had. I want to scream out to all of the young,

"Be vital now!

"Embrace your awakening life, your strength and youthfulness."

"Learn to use the door that is black except for the ray of light just on the other side. Beyond that faint light, all is darkness. From the shadows of your imagination, things will appear out of the darkness, enter that ray of light, and walk through your door."

Let your heart fill with joy and love, and be good to yourself."

I am older now. I am a lucky man, and realize the goodness that has been and is in my life. A bit sad, but also relaxed and happy in my spirit.

I'm glad that you are all in my life,
Tom

One Of My Favorite Places

2010-12-15T20:36:00.000-08:00

Fall is less than a week from being officially over. Winter weather has come almost a month early. It's been freezing outside day and night.

While going through a file of float photos from the past year, I looked at shots of my garden spot taken after another wonderful spring and summer growing fresh peas, peppers, tomatoes, artichokes, asparagus, basil and other herbs. I enjoy growing my crops in large pots, inside the first greenhouse my father and I built.

Almost 20 years ago, a carpentry job was traded for the frame laying on it's side in a field. A previous hurricane had blown it over. Only the front door was open in the house during the storm. The back door was closed. A great gust of wind entered, and had nowhere to go but up. So it did, and pulled the house out of the ground stakes.

The greenhouse was used for many years for growing herbs, and was an especially good environment for growing beautiful varieties of mint.

After a couple of years of non-use, I put up a deer proof fencing around the frame, and turned it into my garden. Adding a few floats excited me. Last spring the thought came to me to try sunturning a few floats as well. After a couple of seasons in the sun, they are definitely beginning to darken nicely.

Rereading one of Charles Abernethy's booklets a few months ago, it brought a smile to my face to realize that he too attempted to sunturn floats in his yard. Another thing to share with him. Wish that I could have known him. I like to think we would have been good friends.

A New Float From France

2010-11-22T19:52:00.001-08:00

About one month ago, a terrific float that is embossed "JGO Sevill," was sold. The sale originated from France, and I thought that all of you collectors and readers would be interested in seeing a float that as far as this collector knows, no one has ever seen before.

The beauty of the float for me is in the cachet or embossing. It is a beautiful new addition to place name embossings. Many of the known examples of place name floats are as follows:

"VAS Veteria Montelupo F;"

"Societa Art. Vetraria Altare;"

"Made in Germany Clover;"

"Made In Czechoslovakia;"

"Made in Germany;" which is an uncommon maker's mark very similar in design to
"Made in Czechoslovakia;"

"FG Made in Norway;"

"Northwestern Glass...Seattle;"

"Crystallite Glendale Calif;"

"FGC Made in England;

"British Made with the North Star;"

"EXTRA RG Portugal;"

"Cameleyre Freres Arcachon;"

"CA Lindren Punsch Stockholm"

"VG" on the seal and "VIDRIERIAS DEL GUADALETE SA" on one side of the float, and
"PUERTO STA MARIA ESPANA" on the opposite side of the float and

"Made in Japan."

Hopefully, more rare place name floats such as the "Portugal Domar with the large star on the side of the glass, seen in Stu Farnsworth and Alan Rammer's booklet, "The Collectors Price Guide and Identification Handbook-GLASS FISHING FLOATS of the WORLD, will be found and made available to at least one of us collectors. As suddenly as the "JGO Sevill," appeared, another great float will surface. Ken Busse has been offering some terrific floats on Ebay auctions lately. There are more than a few that are tremendous and rare floats. Wonder if Santa will make this good boy smile?

A Whale Of A Tale

2010-11-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

Gregsboat1 recently sent an email. In the email, Greg looked back at the fun we had together with Todd "the Norsknailpounder," writing the "Sad Tale of Stranne & Oresten." There is another tale that needs to be written. While the tale contains a good dose of humor, it also contains a hefty portion of "pathos." It's the story of our "Camel-riding-glass-float-finding-friend" Per Einar Gunnersen, and one of the "Holy Grail" of floats.

One just never knows what will pop up when opening up emails. A research question sent from Todd to me, then referred to Per Einar resulted in the following:

I also have some interesting news from a guy up north, but I don't know the
end of the story or if he will sell. Story is:

I just wonder if you are interested in a purchase from 3 glass floats that I found?
"It depends on the makers marks." I said.
It is two perfectly netted amber/brown glass floats in mint condition, and they both
have a whale mark. The second float has AAS mark.
"Very interesting," I said "and of course, I am very interested."
How much are you willing to pay for each float? he asked...
and I bid higher and higher and higher...
Then he said, alright I will contact you later on or so.
This happened several weeks ago or maybe two months ago, and I haven't heard from him again.
I have his phone number and will do a phone call when I am back home again
from my vacation to Sicily (Italy), Rhodes, Ephesus, and Egypt late next
month.
I have never seen those whale marks on glass floats, but now I know that the
color is amber or brown the Norwegian seller told me. Maybe I will ask
for some pictures!!
How much will an Amber Whale markt glass float with perfect net sell for?
How many glass float collectors are interested in having this Whale Markt
glass float in their collection?

Holy Smokes! I couldn't start typing fast enough. A Whale marked float, two of them, incredible!

Good Morning Per,

What a great email to wake up to. It's good to hear from you again too.
Now, about the hopefully...Whale marked floats. Per, I don't know when you
are leaving, but two things are very important concerning these floats.

First, if you put those up for auction on Ebay, you can start thinking
thousands of dollars. No one has ever had an opportunity to purchase even
one of those. They are one of the holy grail of floats, not only for the Euro
collector, but also to the Japanese collectors. I don't think there is a
float collector alive who doesn't know about, and hope to one day see or own
a Whale or Lighthouse marked glass float.

The second thing, you must at least get photos of those floats that show the
marking well. If possible, jump on this opportunity now! Don't halfstep trying to get these...run as fast as you can! If you can get them it would be the coup d'etat of glass float finding. I wish you the best of good fortune.

Oh Man! My head was full of Whales. Since writing the Whale and Lighthouse post, the thought that we are getting closer to actually seeing one or both of those floats has been in my thoughts daily. There were even times, when I felt that giving my imagination free rein to pursue the thought of those floats' reality was aligning the cosmos, and that one might even come to me. I felt close to the realization. Suddenly, Per's email made all of those yearning thoughts come together. But one must be cautious in times like this. I wanted to tell all of my collecting Buds about this, but had to be like a fly fisherman slowly sneaking into position to cast a fly to a 6lb. Brown Trout hiding behind a rock-only, this was a Whale!

The next day, Per wrote again:

Hello again my friend!

I have some outstanding news for you. Please don't tell anyone yet.

Story is:

Just a few minutes ago I had an very interesting phone call with the owner
of those whale floats etc., I told you about yesterday. We agreed on a
deal for 5 glass floats. I am very happy. The floats will arrive in the
next days/week. I have to collect the package on a vessel when it docks here at Bergen Harbor.

There are 5 glass floats, five very interesting glass floats:

Two brown/amber glass floats with a Whale Mark;
One Light Green glass float with a Whale Mark;
One Dark green/olive glass float with a ThreeFish Mark and
One IceBlue glass float with a knob or something and an AAS Mark. (some
scratches from use at sea)

He also told me that he had several floats available and old fishing gear. We will discuss everything when the first box is collected at the vessel.

This is very interesting Tom, and I can't tell you how excited I am right now. It will be very interesting to shoot a few pictures from these floats, and send copies with the history to my good friend Tom.

Take good care my friend!

Holy Mackeral...or Whale! Holding this all in, and not sharing the news with everyone was like a balloon that you keep blowing up, your eyes crossed, as it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Will it pop if I blow some more? Or like blowing a wad of chewing gum into the biggest bubble you can, as your friends look on. It's great fun when that bubble breaks all over your lips, nose, cheeks and chin, but in this case, I didn't want either Per or myself to be laughed at. Mums the word. Then I receive another email from Per...and so does everyone else.

Hi Everyone,

I have a few floats up for sale this week, beautiful floats and start price is low. I also want you to listen at my next news from Norway concerning glass floats and super rare finds here in Norway. I guess I have found the holy grail among glass floats...wow.. this find is just gorgeous and you all have to tell your float collector friends out there about my last find. I will tell you more and give you exact information about glass float mark, age, condition etc. from this blog in mid- September and on the seahermit blog (Tom's blog) in mid-September. Remember to look into these web sites often. THIS FLOAT FIND IS SUPER WOW!

Per couldn't hold it in. Who can blame him? An email was quickly sent to Per:

Hard to keep it under your hat isn't it!! Good job of setting the stage for the ship coming in. I can't wait to see your photos, and to read the history of how you got them. I haven't told anyone but Nancy what's going on. I have to bite my tongue when speaking or writing to other collectors. Great excitement!

Now, I was on the hotseat. Emails from collectors started coming in, all asking if I knew what Per had found. My pal "the Raven," sent a number of emails trying to crack my shell. How hard it was to keep a secret from him. This was my confident and pal asking me for details, but I'd given my word to Per, and what good is your word, if you can't keep it? Thankfully, the Raven is a Pal, and understood. The days passed, then Per wrote:

Good Morning Tom,

I was on the phone again with seller yesterday evening, and everything seems to be alright. Floats are onboard the ship. Tomorrow we will have all answers. Are these floats a dream? Are the maker's marks what they are supposed to be, super rare, holy grails from mid-Norway? What about the story: where did he collect those rare floats; etc; etc.? Who made these glass floats with a Whale, the Norwegians?
A whale showed up on the surface, and took a few rounds around a tiny boat today just outside Bergen Harbor. You can se the news at my safari blogg. Is it a coincidence or a sign?? Mysterious. Maybe it is the Holy Grail! and those whales are the guardians, he, he.

Today, tomorrow, the next day...then Saturday morning came. I was up at the crack of dawn, and quickly wrote Per and email:

Morning Per,
Woke up to the realization that it's Saturday, and soon you will have your package in hand. I wanted to wish you Good Luck!
Tom

Within a few hours I'll finally be able to let the air out of the balloon. It will be like my old chum Eddie and I blowing up balloons in the Walt Whitman Theater while watching a horror movie. The theater was absolutely quiet. Everyone was waiting for the scary surprise to pop out from the screen. Girls were holding onto their date's arms, knees snuggled in, toes curled under, eyes closed, or behind cupped hands. At just the right moment-the moment neither of us could wait any longer for, we gave eachother the nod, then let our balloons go. Swooshing up toward the screen, screams, giggles, laughs followed. What a pair we made!

Per wrote back:

Scheduled time at the Harbor is 15:30 European time or 09:40 New York time today. I will send my first picture when I am looking at the vessel and meeting the Chef onboard. Just something to add on the Seahermit blogg.

We speak before you know it Tom, take care!

Per

Only a few more hours. I couldn't wait to see the photos of those floats. Already, I had pictures in my head of what they would look like. There were three of them. What would the embossed amber Whales look like in their nets? A colorless example too. Would the embossings look like the drawings given to Stu and Alan by Bruce Gidoll? What would it feel like to actually be typing a blog post, and proudly showing those first photos to the world and all of my collector friends and readers? Oh boy!

Excitedly, while eating breakfast with Nancy, I told her about the latest news of Per's adventure. Couldn't help looking at the clock. Then the appointed time came, and I quickly opened up my email account. Not yet. 15 minutes later, I was back in front of the computer again. Finally, the email and photos arrived.

Subject: Holy Grail floats and something for your blogg............

Hello and good afternoon!
First, look at the beautiful view from the vessel and Bergen Harbor, seeing
the top of the mountain Ulriken, where I grew up.

I've been down at Bergen Harbor looking at the vessel from the Hurtigruten Group, and was having a meeting with the Chief onboard. He was the messenger from the float collector up north at the Brønnøysund area. As you remember, I told you about those super rare floats, concerning Holy grail marks, ASS with a knobb..where is the knobb on the blue one (look at pictures) he, he, he, !

Take a closer look into the picture. Tell me which float is the Whale
markt float, and where is the three fish?? Here's the famous glass floats:

I came onto the vessel. Said hello to the Chief, and he gave me a plastic bag filled with glass floats wrapped in bubbleplastic. He found a butcher's knive to cut them open, and I felt a little sceptical. What if he damaged these valuable glass floats? He insisted that there was nothing to worry about. He wanted me to look at
those floats before leaving the vessel. "Alright," I said, but I didn't have
my glasses on. How can I examine all floats and float marks!

One by one he opened the bubble plastic and I was able to examine the floats. All of the floats looks like ordinary glass floats without any marks, exept for the tiny blue on the right corner of the picture. It has a damaged AAS mark. That's all.

Those glass floats above are JUNK, I felt like the guy who have been busted or something. Am I on hidden camera or something? This must be a joke!!

I am a little bit dissapointed but not much. He,he,he. Not every fisherman or what
this seller does for a living, has the Know How about glass floats. He, he,
he. Where is the Whale marks? Ohhh Myyy! I am blind or need new glasses!

"Do you see any makers marks or whales stamped or etched into those glass floats
Chief," I said!

"NOO..Nothing," he said.

"I have to bring all floats back to the guy who sendt them."

"That's the best you have said today," I said.

Then I took my jacket, took my leave, and walked down to my SUV just to find my vehicle with a FLAT REAR TIRE...DAMN!

He, he, he, he.

Anyway, I had a superb new tire hanging on my SUV, no problem! :):)

But I still feel BUSTED!

Definitely not my day today, but I had a gut feeling that told me that this
purchase of the Holy Grail Floats may be too good to be true!

Have a great weekend and take good care!

Per

P.S. Feel free to use it on your blog together with the whale story and those pictures I was sending you from the vessel and floats. I guess the best part was when I got back to my SUV just to find it with a flat tire, he, he, he, what a day and experience!
It was not easy to get an answer for where to find the chef on-board the ship because of safety and security reasons too and I had to argue a lot, he, he, he and when I finally found him and he opened the bubble plastic, he, he, he, just junk and damaged AAS marked ice-blue 3" glass float together with amber and dark green ordinary unmarkt 5" floats.

Well, there you have it. What do I do with the story? How do I respond to the collectors who are waiting for info? This is a funny story, and should be told, but maybe Per is feeling embarrassed? I feel a bit embarrassed myself. There's got to be a way to write the comical side of this whole experience. Have to email Per again.

Hi Per,

After reading your email, I wanted to comment on your feeling that "this was too good to be true"! I had the same feeling, and the need to be cautious as well living up to my word to not "spill the beans". Still, the exciting thoughts and fun sending eachother emails is the best part of our experience with the Whale.

Still a major Bummer!! Makes you wonder what that guy was drinking? Can I have some!! ")

Truly sad that this did not pan out for you as well as all float collectors. So, we're still waiting for the Whale and the Lighthouse.

Thank you for all of the excitement, and for your efforts to make this happen. Nancy and I wish you, Tone and your parents a truly wonderful
vacation experience. I look forward to your return, and your emails.

The story has been brewing in my noggin ever since. A week ago, Per sent me the tale of his vacation, especially the tale of him and Tone getting up on a camel, and the aftermath. That story is for Per alone to tell, and it is a good one too! He also included his wonderful photo found at the top of this post. What a great guy! He gave me permission to not only write this "Whale of a Tale," but also to use the great "Camel-riding-glassfloat-hunting Pal" we've all had such a great time with over the years-Per Einar Gunnarsen.

To truly appreciate the great photo of Per on the camel, put your cursor over the photo, left click and enjoy the enlarged photo.

Buff's Float Rating Guide

2010-09-08T19:16:00.000-07:00

After months of gathering the opinions of Glass Fishing Float collectors concerning what should or should not be important to a glass fishing float guide, Bob Buffington sent me the following concise description tool:

Glass Float Grading Scale

If it’s a trade that is being discussed between individuals, or a sale on an auction site, a clear description that is understood by both parties is the most important tool to completing the deal. To avoid miss-communication, the better the description, and photo(s), the smoother the transaction.

Some Glass Float collectors specialize in collecting a certain type or types of floats. A float may be collectable to one person yet undesirable to another. Below are most of the categories glass float collectors specialize in:

Misshapen floats;

Floats with water inside;

Floats that are unused in appearance;

Floats with internal spindles;

Colors other than the normal colorless, green or aqua floats, such as red, purple, bright and cobalt blue, swirls of colors, orange, violet, and various shades of amber;

Floats with an embossed maker's mark;

Sea Worn Working Floats with definite signs of usage including scrapes, chips, sand abrasions, sea growth, etc.;

Floats with Barnacles or Coral attached;

Floats Painted with folk art, historical paintings or painted for identification of a user's nets for trawling on the water;

Floats Still Encased in their protective cap-net or wooden box;

Shaped Floats such as Dog Neck Floats, Egg Floats with and without Knobs and Grooves, One Knobbed, Teardrop or Lightbulb Floats; and others such as Double Sealed or Bi-Polar Floats.

Some collectors specialize in just one or two categories of floats, and many collect more than one of the categories mentioned above.

The following scale was developed with the input from many of the world's leading collectors. Kindly understand that the scale is merely a means of achieving a standard that can be used as a reasonable descriptive tool, and the intent is not to determine a final price, or rarity of float for sale or trade. A collector may be willing to trade or buy a float that is very low on the grading scale for a very high price. A specialty float collector may not trade for or buy a magnificent float, because it does not fit their collecting philosophy or goals! The intent of the scale is to have a universal reference or starting point. Simply, a quick means of clarifying a float's condition and attributes.

THE GRADING SCALE:

P- Premium A top grade authentic float that appears to have never been used or shows little signs of usage, with a bold and complete maker's mark if present. No maker's mark need be present if the float was never intended to be embossed, and it should have a complete seal button. No chips of any kind. If netted, then cap-net fully intact.

AA – Above Average An authentic working float with nice glass that may have a usage nick or abrasions that are very hard to find or see, no cracks, with or without a complete maker's mark ie: no mark need be present if the float was never intended to be embossed. Up to a few burst surface bubbles is acceptable. Very light or tiny chipping on the seal button, and it may have slight wear marks on the base or side from sitting. If netted, then cap-net may have some frayed lines but largely intact.

G - Good A used float with nicks on the seal button, a weak maker's mark or no mark need be present if the float was never intended to be embossed. Tiny bruises, small chips, burst surface bubbles are all acceptable, as well as scratches and body nicks. No exterior cracks or impact star cracks. It may also exhibit surface scale from marine growth. If netted, the cap-net may be complete, incomplete and/or partially missing.

F – Fair A well-used float with multiple nicks or chips off the seal button, a partial maker's mark, bruises or chips on the body of the float, scratches, burst surface bubbles, exterior cracks and/or impact star cracks, lots of sea wear, surface scale and sand abrasion.

Cracks

It should be noted that subsurface cracks can be a result of the production process. You will not be able to feel the crack on the surface. The most common cracks fall into the following categories: subsurface cracks with or without a surface bruise or ding, concussions-appearing as star-like bruises, and finally, running cracks that penetrate from the surface completely through the glass.

It was important to Bob to finish the Guide with a short discussion on cracks. Collectors need to know what kind of damage a float has sustained. For many, well-worn, pitted, scraped, sand abraided, dinged, covered in various forms of sea growth and even certain types of cracked glassballs would rate as a premium float to them. Cracking can be just fine in a float, but that is up to the collector to decide, so there is a need to be certain of the type of crack present.

Bob's guide is short and sweet, and is a very helpful tool to simplifing the description process for experienced collectors as well as sellers who often say in their descriptions, "I don't know anything about floats." It is an additional tool to be used in the trading or selling of floats, and hopefully, Buff's desire to produce a float condition guide, will give all of us something that will be widely recognized as time passes.

Thank you to the following glass fishing float collectors for their opionions concerning the guide:

Roger & Maria Brun;
Richard Carlson;
Stu Farnsworth;
Bill Jessop;
Todd Marvik;
Olaf Raab and to the guide's creator
Bob Buffington.

Now, There are 5

2010-08-09T09:10:00.000-07:00

On June 10th. 2010, the fourth example of a Ship's Wheel float was won on an Ebay auction. The float was found in France, as was the third example, also sold on Ebay.

As you may remember, in the February '09 post "How Does It Make You Feel?", the first evidence of a float with this rare mark was found by Richard Carlson, while beachcombing a Carribean Island. That float is a sun turned, partial float, with the seal, and one side of the ball intact. The top of the float and the other side of the ball were broken off, and missing. Rich's find was very exciting. For the first time, readers saw the photos, and were treated to a previously unknown Euro float marking.

In June '09, Clint-another Carribean beachcomber, was featured on the blog together with his find of the first whole example of a Ship's Wheel. It too was sunturned.

In September '09, Odev put up for auction on Ebay, the third. Paul is a collector of wonderful art glass.

Keir Lewis-a rare bottle collector, followed that auction in June 2010, with the second Ship's Wheel found in France. Both of those auction floats were sunturned too.

The Odev find was won by Todd, the "Norsknailpounder". The Keir Lewis auction float now resides in the colletion of the "Sea Hermit". During the June auction, email information concerned an effort being made to obtain a 5th. Ship's Wheel arrived. The story was that it was being pursued in England.

Amazing. A previously unknown European float suddenly appears, and in the space of 16 months, four more are found. When I saw the first one, thoughts of it being in the same category of rare floats as the Whale and the Lighthouse floats, came to mind. I believe that it is still a rare float, and wonder if and when another will be found?

As you look at the photos above, the 5th. example is definitely interesting. In the photos I've received of it, the float appears to be colorless. If there is sunturning in the color, it is very faint. Without proof, my feeling is that this marking was done by a French glassworks.

In the collections of those who comb the beaches of the Carribean, are many floats made in Portugal, Spain and France. There are also a few that I know of, from Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Germany, one American-made Duraglas and some Benthos Deep Sea Research Balls. I do not know of floats from Norway having been found from the islands in those waters.

If there are glassballs from other countries found there, kindly leave a comment below. Tracking finds, is a very useful tool of glassfloat research.

One thing that I am convinced of...the floats that are commonly found in the Carribean were lost by Portugese fishermen. There are also "Great Ones," or Japanese Tuna longline floats found there as well. Those "Great Ones," may have been used by Russian fishermen working those waters, and there is a story of a Japanese fishing company having worked from a South American port.

I have not been able to verify either the Russian or Japanese connection. Both stories have come to me via "word of mouth". The Portugese link also comes from word of mouth, but the teller of that history is a very trusted individual who knows his local history, having grown up in the Carribean, and who said that he witnessed the Portugese fishermen there when he was a boy.

By the end of this week, my friends from last October's Carribean beachcombing adventure, will be back in the brush hunting floats. Will they find another Ship's Wheel? I'm hoping they do, and I'm also hoping they find the first Lighthouse or Whale down there. I am guessing that those floats were either Portugese, Spanish or French-made, and have thought that it was the Portugese fishermen who used them. Only time will tell. The excitement to see the first ones, and other rarities from those islands is always with me.

The Floatos starting at the top of the post:

1. Todd's photo of the Marked seal of the 5th.;
2. Author's photo of the Ship's Wheel mark on the 4th.;
3. Todd's photo of the Mark of the 3rd. Ship's Wheel;
4. Bob's photo of the 2nd. Ship's Wheel with dried debris;
5. Richard's photo of the 1st. Ship's Wheel and
6. Todd's photo of the Ship's Wheel Comparison showing the English-found float on
the right.

Branded or Incised Floats, with Charles Abernethy

2010-07-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

CHARLES ABERNETHY
1986

"1986 was a very good year, consisting of two trips to our Pacific North West, having correspondents on far-flung Kure Island, two correspondents on far-flung Midway Island, and finally, the completion of my POSEIDON'S TREASURES FLOAT ROOM."

Charles continued on page 11:

THE JUMBO DOUBLE SAUSAGE. At a gathering at a friend's impressive Japanese type home on a lake in the Seattle area one evening, a guest who had driven a good 160 miles for the occasion ecstatically displayed his latest find, a JUMBO DOUBLE SAUSAGE,**the only one ever heard of, and mayhap the only one in the world.

Then on page 12:

THE OLD RED FIRE ENGINE HOUSE ON ALASKA WAY IN SEATTLE. Now there's no more intriguing or dramatic spot on earth than the Old Red Fire Engine House on Seattle's bustling and tourist thronged waterefront.

Not to take out an hour or so while passing through Seattle to browse about its bewildering indescribable objets d'art would be just as remiss as going to Athens and missing the Acropolis, or going to London and missing The Tower, or...or...or.

It contains a dozen or so antique shops on its three creaky and dust-laden floors. The contents of these shops are to be found nowhere else on earth: they, too are dust covered from being housed a good half-century on the sagging shelves.

Everything from crumbling ship's life preservers, to rusted farm tools, to shabby pre-WWI soldiers' uniforms to completely unrecognizable rusted and wooden aricles are to be found here.

Even the shopkeepers seem cachetic from long years in the half-gloom moving about in a state of suspended animation. A few glassfloats might be found if the shopkeeper can remember where he put them in 1944. One gentleman kept some in several old nail kegs: when I reached in to examine them, the nets covering them crumbled into dust.

Just one hour before AMTRAK time, I returned there...I just HAD to get a float on this junket...in desparation. I reached the top floor to a back shop. What little daylight crept through the soot covered windows, reflected millions of dust particles that slowly eddied about in the air.

"Glass Floats?" began the shopkeeper. "Hm'm'm...oh, yes." From the bottom of a cabinet he brought out three, a 3", a 4" and a 7", all clear glass. No logos on the first two. My heart sank. Was I coming out on this long VERY expensive journey supposedly to see EXPO '86, but in reality to try to find some rare floats in vain???? Slowly, I rotated the 7" in dejection and with reluctance. There...there...there was a trademark-HFC. I could barely see it...it was INCISED deeply into the surface.

The only INCISED plug I had ever seen was on a float I'd received from KURE ISLAND with "MADE IN JAPAN," crudely engraved in a circle around the plug.

"They're from Norway," he said smiling like all Norwegians do. "I'm going back there next week. Leave your name and address and....."

To find a rare European float in the Pacific Coast shop was absolutely unbelievable. It's like bringing Coals to New Castle, as it were!

However, they should be snapped up in a trice by North West Pacific collectors. The price for this collectible? (That is a new word these days. "Collectible")??? Well, it was $8.50. How does a shopkeepeer arrive at that conclusion????

This last second acquisition made the entire trip worth while. I slid it into my canvas "DITTY BAG"...ALWAYS AT HAND...paid my $8.50 (no State Sales Tax), and quietly slithered out of the Old Red Fire Engine House into bustling Alaska Way.

Another great "Cholly" story. A smile crosses my face whenever I've read his usage of the term "slithered out"? Once in a while, we all get a "steal of a deal," and behind the feeling of happiness, don't you have that "slithered out," feeling too?

A few months ago, my friend Olaf, the "Float Collector Extraordinaire," traded for Charles' colorless incised, or branded HFC. After he told me about the trade and the float being in transit, I promised to one day tell him the story of his float's finding by Charles Abernethy. I'm finally getting around to giving him the story, and wrote him to say that he could find it here on this post. Nice guy I am!! At least I kept my word!

The float travelled to the Old Red Fire Engine House, and sat there collecting dust, until Charles Abernethy purchased it. After Charles passed on to join the Float God Fraternity, his float was sold to David Lee, then to Ken Busse, then to Todd "The Norsknailpounder" and was later traded to, and now, resides in the collection of Olaf, "The Float Collector Extraordinaire."

Charles called the marking "incised." That would mean that the mark was cut into the seal button. I only know of a handful of floats with this HFC mark, and to me, the lettering is branded. The mark is consistent, and on the edge of the embossing on my colorless example, there is evidence of the marking tool. Evidence of a tool used to emboss the seal, leads me to believe that it wasn't actually handcut into the seal, but rather a branding tool was used.

Olaf and I both believe that the HFC floats are Swedish-made. There are a few companies that come to mind as being the possible makers of this float: Kosta Boda; Orrefors Glasvaerk and Holmegaards Glasvaerk. "Possible," is the key word here, because proof of the maker is unknown at this time. I've searched through a few excellent tables of maker's markings, but have not found the branded HFC yet.

I did not know of this very uncommon marking until I read Cholly's story of finding his. I've been inside of that store, and looked all over it for floats. At one time, Charles and I had been in the same place (the 1st. Ocean Shores Beachcombers' Fair 1985), but did not meet. I met Amos Woods on Sunday afternoon, during the last few hours of the show. At that time Nancy, the children and I lived a few miles away from Ocean Shores at Copalis Beach.

Copalis Beach is located on Washington State's coastline. It's at the southern tip of the rainforest. Whenever we drove north toward the Tahola Indian Reservation, we were treated to the sights of beachcombed floats decorating the locals' windows, front porches and yards. Glassball hunting tales were part of the local customs and conversations. Floats could be readily purchased in antique stores, garage sales, and flea markets, and I found many of them hiking the beach at the right times.

I knew one guy on the east side, main drag of downtown Hoquiam, who had a thriving comic book shop. Above the sales floor, built out about 10 feet from the back and right sidewalls, was a loft. Many visits to the store found me looking up. My eyes feasted on the many hundreds of fabulous glass balls hanging from the loft's guard rail, and sitting on the loft's floor-singly or in neat piles. There were many-hard-to-see floats behind the floats on the outer edge. As often as I drooled over that sight, and talked to the owner about his collection (all purchased or traded for comic books from locals), I never did have the opportunity to go upstairs to see the floats up close or to hold them in my hands. I can tell you that there were many rare beauties in different colors, sizes and shapes, and every size of round balls from Japan, Northwestern Glass, Corning, and quite possibly Euros. I knew nothing about Euros in my early float collecting days during the last of the 1970's until the mid-1980's. I am only guessing about his having Euros too.

I'm glad that an advertisement for the 1st. Ocean Shores Beachcomber's Fair came to my attention. It was the only one I've attended. Maybe this year? Just a few months after the "85 show, in the beginning of July, we sold our cabin, and moved across the country.

Our Copalis Beach home and property were at the base of a forested mountain. The cabin had been built as a summer visitor's rental after WWII, and was located on a flattened piece of land above a hill overlooking the lower tidal stretch of the Copalis River.

The view from our front cabin windows started at the front yard onto a dirt path defining the front property line. On the other side of the dirt path was another path which led through Salalberry bushes, down the hillside, ending at the two-lane, quiet coastal Highway #1.

Johnson's Merchantile Store with the Copalis Beach post office inside, was on the road's left, and the old-no-longer-used cinderblock, brick, rock and mortar Copalis Jail was on the river side of the road. The road curved left and north crossing the Copalis on a low, wooden 2-lane bridge.

Our view continued with the river coursing under the bridge in a smooth run of water above the 1st. hole. In the fall, the wild Coho Salmon rested in that hole prior to continuing their journey upriver during the first half hour of the incoming tide. The view/river continued down, flowing out of the hole to the hole's western edge-a huge snag made up of trunks, root stumps, and tops of trees. The tree parts were washed down the river during high storm waters. Passing through the snag, the river followed the righthand curve of a point of land on my friend, Walt Plumb's property, and after another long straight run, ended at its Pacific Ocean mouth. On both the southern and northern shores of the river's mouth, I often found beached glassfloats.

Also commanding the view, one could see the waves come ashore on the beach. The river and lowland marsh were protected from storm surges by a line of sandunes. Many sunny summer days found our family of four hiking in the dunes, and picking the tiny sweet wild strawberries growing there.

That was the view from the cabin's windows and property. Our living room picture window which looked out at that view, was bowed in by the gusts of winds from big storms more than once. It never broke. Brick chimneys were shattered by the gusts. Great old growth trees flattened. Mountain edges broken and washed into the sea. Yet, our reliable living room window took the brunt of the fierce winds in stride. Those who lived there were accustomed to the turmoil, and those winds also brought the glassfloats ashore. Copalis Beach, our cabin, our friends and glassballs at that time of our lives are a bond between Nancy, Chloe, Morgan and I.

Hmmm...Got away from the story line there, but enjoyed the time describing my memories to you. Back to the HFC's and branded/incised floats...

I only know of three colorless HFC floats, mine, Olaf's and one belonging to a name-unknown-to-me bottle collector. Todd has a yellow glass example. And I also have a 6.5" diameter netted blue beauty. Are there others out there in collections? If you have one, kindly let me know, and if possible-send a photo or two to share.

Todd emailed photos of his colorless HFC a year or two before he traded it. He too wrote about the indented rather than embossed marking. His float really grabbed me by the "****s"...and I was hooked by the desire to have a "branded one."

Perhaps a week or two passed after Todd's email and floatos, and while looking at a few floats, picked up one of the rarer round balls in the collection. It was won on an auction from the UK, and was sold by a man who found the float at an outdoor French marketplace. It's color is unique in my experience of Euros. It's a very rich and dark aquamarine that leans to blue/green. While looking at it, I suddenly realized, "Hey! This float's cachet (large letters, "FG,") is branded!"

That night, a couple of photos of that float and its maker's mark, were sent to Todd together with the news that there was a second type of float with the incised-branded-indented mark. Since that realization, another large-lettered FG was sold on Ebay, also from France.

At the end of last winter, Barry "the man of 1000 floats," auctioned a unique amber 3.5 inch Northwestern Glass Co. float. It is the standard NWGC float with it's raised neck seal, and flattened base. The base is one of the uncommon bases with the markings normally found on a glass beer bottle base, perhaps put there to help the bottle from sliding or tipping over? The letters, NW and the number 1 are embossed on the base. What makes this particular float so special is found at the top of the raised neck seal. Branded there is the letter "T," and next to the "T," is another branded letter, a "backward S." Every mold mark on the float (except the NW and #1) is crisp and clean, and I wonder if the float was one of the first out of a particular production, and had been branded by an inspector? A mystery that may never be solved.

There are four branded floats in my collection. Do you have any? Are they differently embossed then those described here? Kindly let me know, and if you wish to, I will share them on the blog. Also, if you have an HFC, let me know. I would like to keep a documentation on the number of them that are known to exist.

As we all educate, be educated by our cohorts, and reveal whatever new history we can to glass fishing float history, anything of interest that you may know is important to this joint endeavor.

It was good to get back to some more Cholly Abernethy tales. Thank you for reading.

The Moscuzza Float

2010-07-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

Quite a while ago, Tina and Aaron aka Pumpkins 699, advertised a float on Ebay auctions as being the:

RAREST EVER ON EBAY 5" MOSCUZZA GLASS FLOAT BALL BUOY

I'm willing to bet that like mine, all of the Euro collectors' eyes lit up at the prospect of seeing the float, and reading the auction description. The photos above show the only example that I know of a Moscuzza float. The auction's description reads:

This is a brown glass fishing float ball. It is believed to be a South American float. It measures almost 5" wide and 5"tall or 16+1/8 inch circumference. The glass is a brown color. There are lots of scuffs and scratches to the glass. No chips or cracks! The float looks to be a 2-piece mold float or maybe a European mold. There is a tablespoon of water in the float. The glass is very ruff and abused! There is paint or sea growth on the glass. We honestly can't tell. We purchased this float from a commercial fishermen in Texas quite a few years ago for our collection. There is no information about this float. No one has ever seen one like it.

The photos of the float were copied to my Euro float file. With interest, I watched the auction which did not get a bid, and still have the buy-it-now offer on my list of watched floats.

On June 3rd., Per Einar sent me the following email:

Hi Tom,

Just saw this Moscussa glass float for sale on Ebay today by Tina and Aaron. You know I love digging for facts ;)

Take a look at this Ebay auction:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380214145479&fromMakeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:en

What do you think?

Maybe a discussion on you seahermit blog is the right thing to do, and upload some pictures and links to this site:

http://www.moscuzza.com/eng_home.htm

Take good care my friend!

Per

After reading Per's email, I immediately went to the link, and found the website for the Moscuzza Group, which operates out of Mar del Plata-the main fishing port in Argentina.

Joseph Moscuzza, the company's founder, left his home in Italy, and arrived in Argentina during the 1920's. He was a fisherman, who taught the local fishermen his fishing knowledge, then hired them to start the company.

The company specializes in catching, processing and shipping Hake, Shrimp, Squid, Flounder, Grouper, Butterfish, Anchovy, Red Snapper, Mackeral, Sea Trout, Skate, etc.

The website is a concise and interesting read.

I did attempt to communicate with the company, but have not had an answer to my query for more history, especially history about the production, and use of the company's glass floats. Maybe one day, I will receive some information to pass onto you? After this is posted, I will copy and send it to the company with the hope that someone there will reply.

Thank you Per, for once again taking the time to share your research with the readers.

The Photos:
1. Joseph Moscuzza;
2. fish the company catches;
3. fish the company catches;
4. the very oddly-made seal;
5. the float's mold lines also showing captured light and
6. the Moscuzza float's embossing.

Star's In My Eyes

2010-06-13T03:26:00.001-07:00

Bob Buffington, our host during last fall's Carribean float adventure, sent an email earlier in the spring, concerning a new maker's marking on a Euro float. He started the new float's arrival with the following:

"Hi Tom,

I thought I was going to be sending you a pic of a great find - but alas - things changed a little, and now I will have to wait. I think there is another float out there that has not yet been described. As soon as I get it, I will send along a pic for you to review. Let me know what you think.

Bobafloat"

A week or so passed, after that enticing email arrived. There were a number of times when I wondered what the float Buff was talking about would look like? Before the week had passed, the second email about the new marking arrived:

"Hey Tom,

The float I teased you about came in today. It's a crazy one. It's free blown. It has one large star in the center of the seal button, and has three smaller 5-point stars on the edge of the seal button. There are also parts of two others that weren't embossed clearly. I tried to take pics of it tonite, but had to stop and help Lynda finish mulching our monster flower bed. Whoa!

I think this float may have been painted white at one time. It is really a strange one. I have never heard of or seen this mark before. A friend of mine found it while on an island with me three years ago. He was hunting with my sons Clint, Evan and myself.

We had just put down the cooler under some Cassarina trees, in anticipation of it being there after a hot brush hunt. I walked towards the bush, as did Evan and Clint. My friend Larry, walked straight from a Cassarina tree, looked down and said,

"Is this what we are looking for?"

He held up two floats-a small and clear SB9, and this multi-star float.

The stars are shaped like the marked float from Britain, which are green, and have a single small star on the bottom of the float. These stars are on the seal button. Anyway, I'll send the pics tomorrow night if I can get good ones.

The float is white, but is not white glass. It is one ocean-beat-up-and-worn float, and no doubt, has white paint on it. Its funny that the glass, even with the paint breaking down, is still shiny in spots. It has to have a crack somewhere, because there is white intermittent scale on the inside.

Keep in Touch,
Bob-a-long"

A day or two passed, when Buff sent another email with photos of the float. What a great mark! What a great float, and story of its finding! Will others come to Ebay? Will some lucky collector who is in touch with a friend, suddenly be offered another example of this beautiful mark? I wait with anticipation.

For whatever it is worth, I like to call the British marking a "Starfish" float. That single star reminds me more of sealife, then reminding me of a heavenly star.

Another thought.

I'm just guessing, but this float resembles floats manufactured by the makers of the glassfloat embossed with a "Banded Wreath." Another "Branded Wreath" example has the word "Peser," embossed on the seal, surrounded by the same style of "banded wreath."

"Peser" translated from the French, means "weigh."

Another thought crosses my mind when I look at Buff's 6-Star photo. That float sure has something Spanish emanating from its photo. Who knows?

It's been so much fun having many collectors sending their floatos and stories to me. What a pleasure it is to post and share them with those who read this blog. Sharing, was my original intention for starting the blog. It's great to see the idea coming to fruition.

Just to whet your float appetite, there are future posts pending, which showcase some absolutely tremendous floats-recently found in sheds, barns, boathouses, and attics. Give it a bit of time, and soon, I can begin to share the floats and their owners with all of you.

Bi-Polar Floats From The Norsknailpounder

2010-05-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the last couple of years, a discussion took place between Todd, the "Norsknailpounder," and myself, that eventually included Olaf, the "float collector extraordinaire," Roger Brun owner of the website, "www.norwayfloat.com, and Per Einar, the "great Fish Eagle photographer."

The discussion started with an email from Todd describing a strange float he had purchased from Norway, which had two seal buttons, together with photographs. The speculation began:

Hi Todd,
Don't know what exactly to say about that float. It's odd because it appears to have a definite seal button at the top, and a seal on the bottom. I wish that I could have it in my hand to tell you what I see. The indentation around the bottom does look like a pontil mark, but I cannot be certain. Normally, a float was constructed on a pontil because it had special features added to it, such as a pulled neck or applied shaped neck and seal. I am not seeing that on this float. Maybe one day I will see it in person.

Thanks for thinking of me,

Tom

Todd sent me the float to look at. I took photos of it, looked closely at it, and thought that perhaps it was a float made by an apprentice. Maybe the apprentice was being taught different blowing techniques, and had not only put two seal buttons on the float, but had also mounted it on a pontil rod. The discussion ended there until I received the following email last winter:

Hi Tom!

Say, I was wondering about the two pontiled float I have. I've sent you pictures of it before, and as I recall, you thought that maybe they were made by an apprentice blower, who was learning the craft. The reason for two seals might have been to have better control of the float for other tooling such applied necks, etc.

I'm wondering if maybe you could ask Olaf about this, and see if maybe he has the same double pontiled style of float? I'm curious about the numbers of these floats. Maybe during the course of his extensive collecting in Norway, he has come across a few of these?

Best regards,
Todd

I wrote Olaf with Todd's question, included Todd's latest photos of the float, and received his reply, which was then sent to Todd:

Hello Tom,

I don't think the photo shows a Norwegian glass float.
The color is almost right aqua/blue but not 100% accurate.
And the seal looks too nice. Japanese ??
I would have liked to see both seals.
But it is an intersting glass float, and if Norwegian, it would be a unique one.

Olaf

Todd replied:

Hey Tom!

So that was completely my thoughts when Per offered me this float-it's Japanese! The color and the two seals! But I bought it anyway, and thought it may be a small Pear float. It had the pearish shape.

The color of this float is very much like Flesland glass. There are two more double-sealed floats in two small marker bouys I purchased from Roger and Marie. Their color is one blue and one green, which also look like the Flesland glass colors. I also think that the Aalesund floats you Kurt and I have are similar in color to Flesland colors.

I'll try and send a picture of the other two in the marker bouys, and a shot of each two seals. I'm awaiting Roger and Marie's response. I've asked them if they can remember where they found the marker bouys. And I'm going to ask Per if he remembers where he found the 5'' pear-shaped float.

Todd

Todd received a reply, and forwarded the information to me:

Hi Tom,

I've just finished the email from Roger, he says the buoys were from north of Trondelag, in a place called Ottersoy. He also told me that another collector was there before him, possibly Per.

Per also wrote, and told me that in fact he was there, and most likely, all three floats were from there. So there we are. I wonder which glassworks they come from?
I can't help the feeling that someone else has one of these and doesn't know it.
Per also said that the guy selling the floats had a pile of marker bouys.

I know that two of these came in seperate marker buoys. One was found most likely at the same boathouse that Per visited and from the same seller. Per sold a few more of these marker bouys to other collectors.

I had to really look hard to see the second seal. After seeing there was no maker's mark on the first buoy floats, I didn't give it a real good look.

I believe that Roger never saw these extra seals on the floats in either marker buoy.
One of the floats in the buoys had water in it. This was never described either. It is hard to see through the netting.

Hopefully there are a couple of collectors who have a marker bouy from this seller and that there are more of these double-sealed floats. Per did say that he saw two of these double-sealed floats, the same color, but can not remember many details.

Do you know any buyer who might have this float in their collection ? I'll also ask Per if he remembers who he sold them to.

This is fun,

Take care...Todd.

I next received the following email from Todd, which included photos of the two floats from the marker buoys:

Hi Tom,

My curiosity peaked, and I couldn't help myself, so opened the netting on the buoys.
I can always put them back. Very interesting and unique.

Talk to you soon,
Todd

Three of them. The photos show unique floats, that I did not believe were Japanese. The colors and the style looked Norwegian to me. Wrote Todd with another thought:

Hey Todd,

A thought just occurred to me-is there evidence of holes left from two blowpipes, or was the second seal just applied for effect? It's hard to imagine why two blowers would blow up a single float, but it is a consideration if there are two blowpipe holes. That green one sure is pretty, but in reality they are all beautiful.

Tom

Todd's reply:

Hi Tom

On all floats there is but one blowpipe hole. The other seal was maybe for handling? Per is looking for others in the bouys he has.

Todd

I am convinced that Todd's three double-sealed floats are Norwegian-made, and are quite unique. Olaf, Per Einar and Roger are also convinced that they are Norwegian, and are now searching for more of them.

Only one of Todd's "double-enders," has a pontil mark. The float was broken off the blowpipe, sealed, then applied to a pontil rod. Very different technique. Why was that done, other than another method to apply the second seal?

Here, thanks to Todd, are a trio of strange and beautiful Norwegian floats!

Swirled Euros Continued...and the Bahama Batch

2010-05-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

The post on the French LV swirled float precepitated a number of emails from other collectors, together with swirled floatos. The Swirled European float is an oddity, occurring much less frequently than Swirled Asian floats. If you follow the auctions faithfully, you will often see photos of Swirled Asian floats for sale. At this point, the number of Swirled Euros that I know of is less than 10.

Bob Buffington sent me two floatos of Swirled Euros he has beachcombed in the Caribbean, the beautiful yellow with heavy brown swirls, and the aquamarine ball with amber swirls. Ken Busse is currently Ebay auctioning a beautiful float that is bright blue with amber swirling. Bill Jessop sent a wonderful cd of a number of his floats, which included a green ball with amber swirls. Lighting struck me twice.

The first time lightening hit me, was early this year. I found and won an auction for a grayish colored LV from France. The float's glass is heavily swirled with blue.

In March, an auction appeared for seven floats. The seller described the floats as being 5" diameter Japanese floats that were beachcombed in Alaska. When I looked at the auction photo, I believed that I was looking at European-not Japanese-floats. Opened the auction to find a series of photos showing a beautiful colorful selection of Euros. One was clearly marked with the Gijon Fabril or GF in the Boat embossing. That embossing was known in the past as a "Scrolled 65".

The top photo shows the floats from the auction. As the reader can see, there are a variety of colors as well. As I pondered the auction, the realization that if all 7 were Euros, and all were authentic, then the auction was something special. How often does one have an opportunity to purchase 7 beachcombed Euro floats at one time? It was saved to my ebay file, and a question was sent to the owner requesting to know if anyother floats were embossed. The reply stated that, "There are two with the same mark." Hmmm...now I knew that two were definitely Euros.

On the day of the auction's end, my initial interest and curiosity became a sincere desire to win the auction. As I worked in the greenhouse planting seeds, my mind was preoccupied with thoughts of "how badly do you want to win this auction?", and "what are you prepared to spend in order to try your best to win"? Realized that there was no doubt in my mind, that the desire to win the auction dominated me, and that I would have to step aside from my prudent self, by bidding some serious dollars in an attempt to win.

Normally, I only wear my watch when I dress up, but that day, the watch was on as I worked. I sat down in front of the computer during the auction's waning minutes. With gusto, I bid a bundle, then watched the last few minutes elapse. The bid was just a couple of bucks greater than $20.00 as the countdown reached 5 seconds. The auction ended, and I went to see if I had won, and what the final cost was. *@%!! Another bidder drove the price "way up there," in the last second. Oh well! Did I just spend a bundle for nothing but a couple of common Gijon Fabrils, or were the pair of sunturned floats, and the brown amber float the real deal? There was a nice bright green float, and a dark green that I thought was one of the GF's.

At the time of that auction, we seasoned collectors were in the throes of an ebbtide of good floats that continues... There have been a number of nice Euro auctions, but most of the collectors already have what is being offered. Emails to and from other collectors, reveal that we are all looking hard for great float auctions or trades to get the blood boiling.

A few of my email buddies received the news of my having bid on and won this strange auction. One pal-Todd, the "Norsknailpounder," replied with the wish that the box would prove to be a "treasure chest," and not a big costly disappointment.

After the auction's end, the seller was emailed again to attempt to learn more about the floats, and their description. I wrote that it was unlikely that these floats were Japanese, and the fact that two of them had Spanish embossings on them was puzzling. American-made, Russian and Heye Glass floats have been beachcombed in Alaska, but Spanish-made/normally Portugese-used floats being beachcombed in Alaska, was something I had never heard of.

The seller replied:

"As for the history of the floats... They predate my birth (1965) so I really don't know too much about them. My Dad was in the Navy, and I remember him and my Mom talking about finding some fishing floats from Japan washed up on the rocky shore of Adak, Alaska. But they were also stationed on Oahu, Hawaii and on Eleuthera, Bahamas. I don't know if they also found floats in these locations, but they loved to comb the beaches where they were stationed at."

Ahh... an Eleuthera, Bahama beach seemed like the real finding spot of that batch of floats. Euros found in the Carribean is a fact that cannot be discounted. The answer to my email query was a nice little jolt of confidence. Hurry up package!

The box arrived in days rather than weeks. Upon returning from plant deliveries, a nice big double-boxed batch of floats was found waiting on the porch. I had plenty of work to do, so the time spent waiting for the contents of the box to acclimate to the temperatures inside our home, passed quickly. After a couple of hours, I broke away from work to open the package.

The little Kodak digital camera was taken off the charger-ready to document the unveiling. At that time of the afternoon, the light coming through the south window in my float room was just fine for floatography. So, I sat down to open the box. The floats could not have been packed any safer. Not only were they double-boxed, each float was abundantly encircled with bubble wrap to prevent contact with another float.

Through the bubble wrap, it was possible to see enough color to know which float I wanted to open first. Let's start with the obvious aqua with the GF in the Boat. The first surprise: the float had the GF embossing, but also had the number 6-which is uncommon.

The second float was the dark green float. Not another GF in the Boat. It has the "thought-to-be French-made," #1 embossing. Hmmm...the seller never mentioned that mark. The surprises continued. The light green float-another supposed French float with the #10 embossed. Wow! This batch of floats is amazing. The best was still to come.

There was a second GF in the Boat-a nice very light aqua ball. Next, I decided to open one of the sunturned violet floats-the lightest one first. Before I tell you what it was, a bit of a story in the story.

I was under the impression that magnesium oxide was used to counteract iron oxides from turning glass aqua to green, resulting in colorless glass. The magnesium oxide later turned the glass from colorless to various shades of violet under the influence of the sun's ultraviolet waves. Richard Carlson set me straight, when he mentioned the use of selenium to counteract iron oxides in glass mixtures. Selenium was a new one to me, and his information stuck in my brain. Later, I read that the use of magnesium was expensive, and that most of the late 19th. to 20th. century glass mixtures incorporated selenium rather than magnesium to the batch when colorless glass was desired. Selenium also turns pink to violet under the influence of ultraviolet light waves. Thank you for that clarification Rich.

The lightest violet float, was found to be marked-LV. The second sunturned was darker, and though unmarked, was a genuine European fishing float with ample evidence of usage. I saved the brown/amber float for last.

After unwrapping the float from the bubblewrap, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The float was not brown/amber at all. It was golden yellow glass. The brown coloration in the auction photo, was actually orange/brown swirling. The swirling reminds me of Tiger stripes.

Todd, your wish (and mine) came true. The box did turn out to be a treasure chest.

That's the story of lightening striking me twice. Hopefully, you enjoy seeing the pics of various swirled Euros, and if you have one too, kindly send me a photo to document the float, and to share it with others.

Floatos:

Top...Bahama Batch;
2nd...French LV;
3rd...Bob Buffington's yellow/amber with brown swirls-Carribean;
4th...Bill Jessop's swirled aqua-Canada;
5th...Ken Busse's amber swirled blue float-Europe;
6th...Bob Buffinton's swirled aquamarine-Carribean;
7th...Red Torvald Stranne with black swirls-Sweden;
8th...Side view of Bahama yellow with brown swirls and
9th...Top of Bahama yellow swirled float.

There's Still Hope!

2010-05-23T09:02:00.001-07:00

On Sunday, March 1, 2010, the following email from my good collecting pal Olaf arrived:

Good Morning Tom

Hope everything is fine with you today.

I would like to make an effort to obtain the Vallo glass float.
I fully respect if you do not want to be involved. If however, you are positive to help me I would highly appreciate if you could send the following email to the float's owner.

Re: VALLO FLOAT

I take the liberty to write indirectly to you via my good American friend Mr. Tom Rizzo whom I have asked to send this email directly to you. He is my reference.

Thanks to you, and your book "GLASS FISHING FLOATS OF THE WORLD" there are many glass float collectors around the world today. I am one of them, living in Oslo, Norway.

I started my interest as a kid, walking along the beaches in the small fjords of south-coast Norway, looking for glass treasures from the sea. The interest took off a few years ago when I was lucky to buy 150 glass floats from Lofoten, North Norway from a man who also showed me your book. I was hooked.

I have all these years specialized in collecting Norwegian produced glass floats, having bought several boxes filled with glass floats from fishermen living along the Norwegian coast-line. My collection today also consists of many beautiful euros.

But I miss one glass float-only one to my knowledge-which is the Vallo float.

The one which you bought from Vebjorn is probably the only known example in the world today. I have been in contact with the National Maritime Museum in Oslo, and I am working on having all my 2350 glass floats to be part of an exhibition there, concerning the coast-culture of Norway. It would be good if I could bring the Vallo float back home, and present to them all the glass floats types/markings being produced in Norway.

With best regards
Olaf Raab

Now, there's a way to start a day! As the reader may know, almost without exception, the first thing that I do in the morning after getting out of bed, is turn the computer on. Next, I go to my emails. As I write this, today is one of those exceptions.

I've been dying to do another post. Friday, as if someone threw a switch, my spring season of selling herbs, perennials and vegetables came to a screeching halt. There was nothing on the books to pick and deliver. No matter how many years I'm in the business of growing plants for the retail market's gardeners, that sudden halt of sales is a shock. I've recovered now, and last night before going to bed, started working on this post. This morning, I did turn on the computer first, but instead of checking for emails, and new floats, have come here to attempt to finish this post.

As I write this, a Woodpecker is trying to attract a mate, and is striking the side of a tree with alacrity. Almost makes my head hurt to imagine what banging a beak into the side of a tree must feel like to that lustful male.

On the morning of Olaf's request email, the very next thing that I did was to write an email to Alan Rammer to introduce Olaf, and included his email. Next, I sent a copy of my email to Alan to Olaf. It brought me great enjoyment to attempt to help out two fine collectors, and certainly, my friend Olaf.

Would Alan consider?

A day or two passed, when at the end of an Olaf email, he included the following postscript:

Hi Tom,

P.S. No news from Alan.
My guess is that he turns the proposal down. I am usually a very optimistic and positive person.

I did make an attempt to assuage Olaf's disappointment by asking him to be as patient as possible, because Alan's life was quite full of responsibility caring for a very special person, and that he would write back. Knowing that the chance of Alan giving up the Vallo was unlikely, I still held out the hope that to bring the Vallo back to Norway was a very worthy entreaty. He would not take that request lightly. Alan would not only write back, but would also need time to consider what giving up the float meant.

Two days later, I received an email from Alan, and quickly wrote Olaf.

Hi Olaf,
Here's a good way to start the day:

Hello Tom,

I would like to write to Olaf about his desire to bring the Vallo float back to Norway.

As much as I enjoy the float, I have come to the conclusion in recent months (since retirement actually) --- that we cannot take our earthly possessions to the afterlife with us, and it is sometimes fun to share an item with someone who just might enjoy it as much as we did.

Can you please send me Olaf's full email address?

Alan

There you go Olaf. Now, the possibility of you owning the Vallo, is very real. I wish the two of you great good luck.

Also, I have not asked Alan, but would like to propose something to the two of you . The passing of the Vallo to another collector is tremendous news to dedicated collectors. I would like to do a post on the float, but only if the two of you think that it's a good idea. I'll leave this up to the two of you, but did want to put the prospect out there.

In the meantime, have a great day-I can just imagine how excited you are at the possibility of your desire becoming reality.

Best Wishes,
Tom

Olaf's reply was almost instantaneous.

Hi Tom

That is fantastic news!

At least Alan is willing to consider it. That is great!

Thanks for being so kind Tom and be the middle broker.
Highly appreciated.

Olaf

A few weeks passed. During that time, Alan and Olaf got to know each other a bit, and an agreement was reached to return the float to Norway. On April 3rd. Olaf wrote:

Still awaiting the Vallo to arrive-hope Tuesday. Will let you know.
Olaf

Then the next Vallo email arrived:

Tom,

The Vallø arrived today. What a fantastic beauty ! So small, and such nice letters. Can't be a display float. It has definitely been used. The size of only about 3", tells be again that the first floats here were the small ones, like the AAV, AV, HV etc etc.

I am so proud to have that one in my collection, thanks to you and great thanks to Alan Rammer who was willing to dispose of it. Alan Rammer is in fact a very nice man.

All the best

Olaf

What happiness that brought to me personally. As the time passed between Olaf's original email, and the arrival, there were a few times that I bent Nancy's ear about the trade, and always, the thought of the float going back home gave me a feeling of worthiness in my attempt, and in my desire for the trade to happen.

After the trade was culminated, and the float arrived safely, the next email to Olaf was filled with excitement for him. The knowledge that the float was not one of the 1878 Paris show models, but was in fact, a used float, was wonderful news. Also, Olaf's measurement of the float's size and the photograph of the float next to a standard 5-incher was a surprise.

Thoughts of the engraver's wonderful work on the seal of such a small float, and the person who stamped the embossing on the seal came to mind, as well as the distinct possibility that one or more Vallos might someday be found in a gear pile in an old Norwegian fisherman's boathouse.

Both Olaf and Alan considered my desire to write a post to the blog about the trade, and also sent me their impressions after the float's recrossing of the Atlantic.

From Alan:

Hi Tom,

I have been spending most of this month trying to begin the arduous task of settling the estate of the lady I have called my "Northwest Mom," for 32 years. There has been little time for much else. I have 4 months to try and settle what needs to be done. It's a task involving 57 years of collecting by her and her husband. They threw NOTHING away! So far I have had over 40 cubic yards of stuff hauled off! I also have to get ready for my trip to Europe in less than a month!

I am taking a few moments this evening to try and answer your questions about the Vallo float.

I have only had it a few years and did not fully understood the significance of it until I had told you, and you told Olaf. It is always exciting to have one of a kind floats, and this one was no exception. But in the bigger picture, as I age, this does not really matter. Each float is unique in its own right, and a piece of a larger puzzle to the history of fishing around the world using them.

Yes, at first I did not want to trade it or sell it because I do enjoy my Euros. The aura of it being one of a kind, made it a bit harder to part with until Olaf explained his hopes and plans for his Euro collection one day, as well as this particular float being the only one known and its historical significance.

At the same time, certain events were beginning to take place in my life that made me think about my floats, their importance in regards to the bigger world picture and family issues. I decided it was time for the Vallo float to go home. That is where it belonged. I did not have any problems parting with it this time. It seemed quite right, and actually exciting to send it "home".

While I enjoy my floats, they are becoming less and less the center of my life. I enjoy sharing them with others, and do not need to have duplicates or examples of every kind. It actually brings me joy to know the Vallo float is safely home in Norway. Who knows? Maybe another one or two will come our way in the years ahead?

In this world filled with con artists and less than scrupulous people, Olaf is one of those who is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum - a very honorable man. I will most likely never meet him but I had very good feelings from the moment you put us in touch with each other.

Knowing the Vallo is back where it belongs does not bother me in the least! It actually feels very good!

Alan

From Olaf:

THE VALLO FLOAT

A real collector is the collector who feels more joy and more fun by fulfilling other collector's dreams, rather than collect or keep glass floats themselves.
Alan Rammer is a real collector or THE collector.

Ever since I dreamed of getting my Norwegian collection of glass floats complete; and displaying my collection at the Maritime Museum in Oslo, there was one unique glass float that I missed in my collection, the Vallo glass float.

Having looked at thousands of Norwegian glass floats, I had at a certain stage- doubts of its existence, but having seen the photo on Vebjorn's website, there was actually one located on the other side of the Atlantic, in the USA.

I knew the history of the Vallo Glasswork. It was located outside the town of Tonsberg, only 1-hour with car from Oslo. I read that the glassswork had won medals for their glass floats at the exhibition in Paris in 1878.

Alan made my dream come through when he accepted my offer for the Vallo float. He was also so kind to share moments of his life with me, and he enjoyed bringing joy into other's lives. He certainly brought a fantastic joy into my life. If he had been here, he would have seen a big smile on my face when I unpacked this beautiful, olive sea jewel with its beautiful letters.

Also huge thanks for putting me in contact with Alan.

I admire that man, who in my mind is described as AAA. I will always think of him when I look at this fantastic glass float in my collection, presently in my home.

Hopefully, it will later appear at the Maritime Museum in Oslo, where also other people can enjoy looking at-in my opinion-the most unique glass float in Norway, the VALLO glass float.