The Ins And Outs Of Black VS White Opinions With Exceptions....

This is a personal opinion piece, and also a personal attitude towards having extreme black or white, all or nothing, never or always, no gray area perceptions. This can be applied to all aspects of life.

I find it can be dangerous and unrealistic. Here stems the roots of intolerance, ignorance, and arrogance.

If we apply this mind set to collector's opinions and chosen category of items, it also fails to take into account that sweeping statements that leave no room for a middle ground of a more complex scenario, will be missed and ignored. This leaves an informed and accurate view impossible to achieve.

I was joking with another long term collector about the continued misattributions of Bohemian and Czech glass after years of work and study by many people on the internet, and that it did not seem to have made any impression on a lot of this glass's identification. I said "WE MADE MORE OF AN IMPRESSION ON EACH OTHER THAN ON THE STATE OF GLASS ATTRIBUTION". This is the irony.

Yesterday I spent much of the day doing research with German texts, translating and adding to my notes about our interwar information of glass production in Czechoslovakia, and gained more knowledge of what the situation was. This is to prepare for Part II of my article in the magazine All About Glass, January 2019 issue. There were about 247 glass houses in production in early 1920s, and that is not counting the number of decorators or finishers who did cutting, etching and enameling as their employment in the Czech Art glass industry.

We still have not made great inroads as to who made what and where. I do believe we achieved a greater understanding and have made decor and shape groupings by the same producers, but only part of the huge puzzle. But we still can't identify many pieces, and we can't vouch for the glass attributions 100% of the time. I don't even include myself and what I think in this quest.

My lack of experience and years of study, did give me a fresh eye and open minded approach. I did find many glass pieces which share their Czech made style either in shape or decor or both. Was I serious with my Ruckl project and website, of course, did I delude myself that I would be completely successful, no. Did I increase the awareness and valid attributions? I think I did. Were there some mistakes? There was.

I will not respond to the latest challenge about what I say or do, here or elsewhere, or any future challenge about my lack of consistency or anything else. Sometimes, people are so different that understanding each other or accepting their ways seems impossible.

Images used are either mine, done with permission or they belong to the public domain due to age. First 2 relate to Ruckl (Anton Ruckl & family), last 2 relate to Kralik (the Kralik summer villa).