This peculiar ring of Irish glass is not to be found in glass of alien
origin. The foreign copies are quite different. Sometimes they will not
ring at all, especially the wine glasses; the better ones give a sound
of sorts, but it is very dead, and, if carefully listened to, the note
is never true, just a little flat, quite unlike the "singing Waterford."
=FAKES=
These are innumerable, and belong to all periods, old and modern, since
Irish glass first became popular.
No glass in the world has been so much copied, and none has, in
the long run, stood out so successfully in defying the faker.
This constitutes one of the great attractions of Irish glass to
the collector, for though many imitations of it have been made of
sufficient excellence to deceive the inexperienced and unwary, it
cannot be copied sufficiently well to deceive the connoisseur.
The finest reproductions from France, Belgium, Holland, and even
Germany, all fail in colour and texture, though some of the cutting is
exceedingly clever.
At the present moment there is an enormous amount of spurious glass
on the market, and some time ago a lot of remarkable copies were in
circulation. They were the best that have yet appeared, especially the
urns and candlesticks, and _numbers_ fell into the hands of the
unwary. One special weakness, however, was very noticeable--_the colour
fell in the tall pieces, leaving the tops whiter than the bases_.