Antique Glass Clinic

District IV is holding an Antique Glass Clinic on Sunday October 3, 2010 from 1pm to 4pm at the Renaissance Antique & Collectibles Market.  There will be glass displays, presentations, and a glass identification clinic. There is no fee for entry and a free membership in Glasfax will be raffled off.  A brochure with more details can be downloaded here.

Dr. John Malcolm (Mack) Smith Glasfax Newsletter Archives

Glasfax is very pleased to announce the establishment of the Dr. John Malcolm (Mack) Smith Glasfax Newsletter Archives!  Mack was passionate and vocal about the need for assembling a complete run of all of the newsletters published from 1967 to 1984 and the development of an index to the Glasfax Newsletters.  In June 1989, he made a presentation to District 4 that started with:

As most of you will know, I've been anxious, for many years to do "something" about the Glasfax Newsletters.  I did this for the following reasons:

·         there is a vast amount of information, most of it unknown and unavailable to current members of Glasfax

·         an index, complete and detailed, is desirable

Well, Mack – we are glad to report that Glasfax finally has done “something” about the newsletters!  We now have an electronic archive that will shortly include complete copies of each and every newsletter.  We’re just sorry that you weren’t with us long enough to see it come to fruition!  Each issue is a searchable pdf document that you can either view on site or download to your computer.  An index is provided to allow the reader to find articles of interest for the newsletters up to 1984.

Special Offer - Walt Lemiski, District 3, has generously offered to provide Glasfax members a discount on his excellent glass books AND further to give Glasfax a donation for each of his books sold through the Glasfax webpage or newsletter.  See our Publications page for more details.

Artistic Cut Glass Catalog Repatriated

A good example of our pursuit of the objective to preserve Canadian glass history is the purchase and donation of the “Artistic Cut Glass Catalog A 1914” of the Wallaceburg Cut Glass Works to the Wallaceburg and District Museum. To our knowledge, this is the only known document picturing the products made by this firm. The Wallaceburg Cut Glass Works began operations in March 1913 in Wallaceburg , Ontario . D.A. Gordon, a well known Wallaceburg businessman, was the head of the firm. He was also a director of the Sydenham Glass Works. The new firm was located at the site of the Sydenham Glass Co. but took pains to point out that the two firms were not connected. A contemporary newspaper article described the Wallaceburg Cut Glass Works’ products as light ware cut glass and indicated that there was no other factory in Canada making similar products. The firm moved shortly after startup to 330 Duncan Street where it operated until the early 1930s.

In 2001, this catalog came up for sale on ebay. Unfortunately, Glasfax did not win the bid. However, we approached the winners to inquire about obtaining a copy. It turned out that the winning bidder was the American Cut Glass Association who purchase cut glass catalogs for research purposes. After we introduced them to Glasfax and communicated the history of the factory, they generously arranged for Glasfax District IV to purchase the original. In turn, Glasfax donated it to the Museum thereby ensuring that this important document is where it rightfully belongs - in the community where the Wallaceburg Cut Glass Works operated so many years ago!