The more you have the more you wonder about export Czech glass - more jars.

There can be so many variations of glass item shapes, some minute, others distinctive, that trow up conclusion you had hoped for or were even quite convinced about, in the air. I see and read what other longer term collectors think in this category, which agrees with my own conclusions or not.

We all share the same fascination for Bohemian and Czech glass of all kinds. The most frustrating is the mid-market valued glass pieces, the ones the Truitts focused on in their Volume II of Bohemian Glass books. They said so specifically when the book focus in the first chapter was explained. This makes sense, even if we might miss the ones judged above and below that criteria.

I remember how in the Asian decorative export markets of the early 20th century, we often struggled to define which country and at what time frame an object was from. Never mind the maker for mid-price decorative pieces. The museum quality items were fully researched and attributed, the Victoria & Albert Crystal Palace Museum is a great example in these circumstances. Many of their pieces were purchased at European International Fairs, the occasion enabling the fullest background information they could and would document for their acquisitions.

When you already know this, what was made in massive numbers in Eastern Europe and exported, is much more difficult to differentiate. They often did not provide that basic who; in the who, what, where and when formula approach of Czech interwar export decorative glass. We are left with marks and labels which do not help the collector much of the time.

When mid price Asian collectors would advise to not waste time on marks of mid value items, because they could be from any number of related business enterprises in the chain, some quite complex in the export-import contracts of that time, when shipping was overseas by boat. You can see the common elements between crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and crossing the Pacific Ocean with a cargo full of these exports going to the Americas from Asia and from Czechoslovakia during 1920-1935.

My images are of 3 interwar Czech glass jars, in the smaller range of 4 to 5 inches high and wide.