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VINTAGE CRYSTAL PISTOL PETE

COWBOY

MEASURES ABOUT 1/6/8" -- 5.5cm TALL

UNMARKED

UNSIGNED

LITTLE SHERIFF IS TOTING A SIX SHOOTER

AND DONNING HIS LAW MAN'S BADGE

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FYI

Lead glass is a variety of glass in which lead replaces the calcium content of a typical potash glass. Lead glass contains typically 18–40 weight% lead(II) oxide (PbO), while modern lead crystal, historically also known as flint glass due to the original silica source, contains a minimum of 24% PbO. Lead glass is desirable owing to its decorative properties.

Technically, the term crystal is not applied to glass, as glass, by definition, lacks a crystalline structure. The use of the term lead crystal remains popular for historical and commercial reasons, and originally stems from the discovery in 1674 by Englishman George Ravenscroft that by adding lead oxide in quantities of between 10 and 30% the appearance of the glass improved and it was easier to melt using sea-coal as a furnace fuel, and had a longer "working period", and the Venetian use of the word cristallo to describe the rock crystal imitated by Murano glassmakers. This naming convention has been maintained to the present day to describe decorative hollow-ware.

Due to the potential health risks of lead that it contains, true lead crystal glassware is rare nowadays. One material that is commonly used to manufacture glassware and referred to as "crystal" is lead-free crystal glass. In lead-free crystal glass, barium oxide, zinc oxide, or potassium oxide are employed instead of lead oxide. Lead-free crystal has a similar refractive index to lead crystal, but it is lighter and it has less dispersive power. In the European Union, labeling of "crystal" products is regulated by Council Directive 69/493/EEC, which defines four categories, depending on the chemical composition and properties of the material. Only glass products containing at least 24% of lead oxide may be referred to as "lead crystal". Products with less lead oxide, or glass products with other metal oxides used in place of lead oxide, must be labeled "crystallin" or "crystal glass".

Properties

The addition of lead oxide to glass raises its refractive index and lowers its working temperature and viscosity. The attractive optical properties of lead glass result from the high content of the heavy metal lead. The high atomic number of lead also raises the density of the material, since lead has a very high atomic weight of 207.2, versus 40.08 for calcium. The density of soda glass is 2.4 g/cm3 or below, while typical lead crystal has a density of around 3.1 g/cm3 and high-lead glass can be over 4.0 g/cm3 or even up to 5.9 g/cm3.

The brilliance of lead crystal relies on the high refractive index caused by the lead content. Ordinary glass has a refractive index of n = 1.5, while the addition of lead produces a range up to 1.7. This heightened refractive index also correlates with increased dispersion, which measures the degree to which a medium separates light into its component spectra, as in a prism. Crystal cutting techniques exploit these properties to create a brilliant, sparkling effect as each cut facet reflects and transmits light through the object. The high refractive index is useful for lens making, since a given focal length can be achieved with a thinner lens. However, the dispersion must be corrected by other components of the lens system if it is to be achromatic.

The addition of lead oxide to potash glass also reduces its viscosity, rendering it more fluid than ordinary soda glass above softening temperature (about 600 °C), with a working point of 800 °C. The viscosity of glass varies radically with temperature, but that of lead glass is roughly 100 times less than that of ordinary soda glasses across working temperature ranges (up to 1100 °C). From the glassmaker’s perspective, this results in two practical developments. First, lead glass may be worked at a lower temperature, leading to its use in enamelling, and second, clear vessels may be made free from trapped air bubbles with considerably less difficulty than with ordinary glasses, allowing the manufacture of perfectly clear, flawless objects. When tapped, lead crystal makes a ringing sound, unlike ordinary glasses. Consumers still rely on this property to distinguish it from cheaper glasses. Since the potassium ions are bound more tightly in a lead-silica matrix than in a soda-lime glass, the glass when struck absorbs less energy. This causes the glass to oscillate, thereby producing its characteristic sound. Lead also increases the solubility of tin, copper, and antimony, leading to its use in colored enamels and glazes. The low viscosity of lead glass melt is the reason for typically high lead oxide content in the glass solders.

The presence of lead is used in glasses absorbing gamma radiation and X-rays, used in radiation shielding (e.g. in cathode ray tubes, where lowering the exposure of the viewer to soft X-rays is of concern).

The high ionic radius of the Pb2+ ion renders it highly immobile in the matrix and hinders the movement of other ions; lead glasses therefore have high electrical resistance, about two orders of magnitude higher than soda-lime glass (108.5 vs 106.5 Ohm·cm, DC at 250 °C). Lead-containing glass is therefore frequently used in light fixtures.

History

Lead may be introduced into glass either as an ingredient of the primary melt or added to preformed leadless glass or frit. The lead oxide used in lead glass could be obtained from a variety of sources. In Europe, galena, lead sulfide, was widely available, which could be smelted to produce metallic lead. The lead metal would be calcined to form lead oxide by roasting it and scraping off the litharge. In the medieval period lead metal could be obtained through recycling from abandoned Roman sites and plumbing, even from church roofs. Metallic lead was demanded in quantity for silver cupellation, and the resulting litharge could be used directly by glassmakers. Lead was also used for ceramic lead glazes. This material interdependence suggests a close working relationship between potters, glassmakers, and metalworkers.

Glasses with lead oxide content first appeared in Mesopotamia, the birthplace of the glass industry. The earliest known example is a blue glass fragment from Nippur dated to 1400 BC containing 3.66% PbO, and is mentioned in clay tablets from the reign of Assurbanipal (668–631 BC), and a recipe for lead glaze appears in a Babylonian tablet of 1700 BC. A red sealing-wax cake found in the Burnt Palace at Nimrud, from the early 6th century BC, contains 10% PbO. These low values suggest that lead oxide may not have been consciously added, and was certainly not used as the primary fluxing agent in ancient glasses. Lead glass also occurs in Han-period China (206 BC – 220 AD). Here it was used in cast to imitate jade, both for ritual objects such as big and small figures, as well as jewellery and a limited range of vessels. Since glass occurs at such a late date in China, it is thought that the technology was brought along the Silk Road by glassworkers from the Middle East. The fundamental compositional difference between Western silica-natron glass and the unique Chinese lead glass, however, may indicate a quite different development.

In medieval and early modern Europe lead glass was used as a base in coloured glasses, specifically in mosaic tesserae, enamels, stained-glass painting, and bijouterie, where it was used to imitate precious stones. Several textual sources describing lead glass survive. In his Schedula Diversarum Artium (List Sundry Crafts'), Theophilus describes its use as imitation gemstone, and the title of a lost chapter mentions the use of lead in glass. The 12–13th century Heraclius details the manufacture of lead enamel and its use for window painting in his De Coloribus et artibus Romanorum (Of for Huereds and Crafts Romans'). This refers to lead glass as “Jewish glass”, perhaps indicating its transmission to Europe. A manuscript preserved at San Marco, Venice, describes the use of lead oxide in enamels and includes recipes for calcining lead to form the oxide. Lead glass was ideally suited for enamelling vessels and windows owing to its lower working temperature than the forest glass body.

Antonio Neri devoted his entire book four of his L’Arte Vetraria to lead glass, first published in 1612. In this first systematic treatise on glass, he again refers to the use of lead glass in enamels, glassware, and for the imitation of precious stones. Christopher Merrett translated this into English in 1662 (The Art of Glass), paving the way for the production of English lead crystal glass by George Ravenscroft.

George Ravenscroft (1618–1681) was the first to produce clear lead crystal glassware on an industrial scale. The son of a merchant with close ties to Venice, Ravenscroft had the cultural and financial resources necessary to revolutionise the glass trade, allowing England to overtake Venice as the centre of the glass industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With the aid of Venetian glassmakers, especially da Costa, and under the auspices of the Glass Sellers Guild, Ravenscroft sought to find an alternative to Venetian cristallo. His use of flint as the silica source has led to the term flint glass to describe these crystal glasses, despite his later switch to sand. At first, his glasses tended to crizzle, developing a network of small cracks destroying its transparency, which was eventually overcome by replacing some of the potash flux with lead oxide to the melt, up to 30%. Crizzling results from the destruction of the glass network by an excess of alkali, and may be caused by excess humidity as well as inherent defects in glass composition. He was granted a protective patent in 1673, where production and refinement moved from his glasshouse on the Savoy to the seclusion of Henley-on-Thames, and in 1676, having apparently overcome the crizzling problem, was granted the use of a raven’s head seal as a guaranty of quality. In 1681, the year of his death, the patent expired and operations quickly developed amongst several firms, where by 1696 twenty-seven of the eighty-eight glasshouses in England were producing flint glass containing 30–35% PbO, especially at London and Bristol.

At this period, glass was sold by weight, and the typical forms were rather heavy and solid with minimal decoration. Such was its success on the international market, however, that in 1746 the British Government imposed a lucrative tax by weight. Rather than drastically reduce the lead content of their glass, manufacturers responded by creating highly-decorated, smaller, more-delicate forms, often with hollow stems, known to collectors today as Excise glasses. In 1780, the Government granted Ireland free trade in glass without taxation. English labour and capital then shifted to Dublin and Belfast, and new glassworks specialising in cut glass were installed in Cork and Waterford. In 1825, the tax was renewed, and gradually the industry declined until the mid-nineteenth century, when they were finally repealed.

From this period, English lead glass became popular throughout Europe, and was ideally suited to the new taste for wheel-cut glass decoration perfected on the Continent owing to its relatively soft properties. In Holland, local engraving masters such as David Wolff and Frans Greenwood stippled imported English glassware, a style that remained popular through the eighteenth century. Such was its popularity in Holland that the first Continental production of lead-crystal glass began there, probably as the result of imported English workers. Imitating lead-crystal à la façon d’Angleterre presented technical difficulties, as the best results were obtained with covered pots in a coal-fired furnace, a particularly English process requiring specialised cone-furnaces. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, lead-crystal glass was being produced in France, Germany, and Norway. By 1800, Anglo-Irish lead crystal had overtaken lime-potash glasses on the Continent, and traditional glassmaking centres in Bohemia began to focus on colored glasses rather than compete directly against it.

The development of lead glass continued through the twentieth century, when in 1932 scientists at the Corning Glassworks, New York, developed a new lead glass of high optical clarity. This became the focus of Steuben glassworks, a division of Corning, which produced decorative vases, bowls, and glasses in Art Deco style. Lead-crystal continues to be used in industrial and decorative applications.

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A cowboy (Spanish vaquero) tends cattle and horses on cattle ranches in North and South America. The cowboy is normally a ranch hand in charge of the horses and/or cattle, as is the wrangler. In addition to ranch work, some cowboys work in and participate in rodeos, and many cowboys work only in the rodeo. Antecedents Originally, the word designated a herdsboy who was employed as a cowherd, often on foot (riding requiring skills and investment in horse and equipment rarely available to or entrusted to a boy). Herdswork was often done - more often with sheep or goats - by minors in Antiquity, and still is in various third world cultures; the teenagers of a South African tribe even maintain a specific traditional form of Nguni stick fighting, to defend themselves and their herds. But in the western culture, herding cattle was rarely left to boys, except as trainees at least approaching manhood, especially as schooling became generalized, and the term became disassociated from the boyish age, at first retaining the notion of low status often implied by 'boy' in professional designations, later being extended to the whole ranch culture. North America During the 16th century, they brought the tradition and their horses, the ancestors of the "wild" mustangs, with them to the New World through New Spain (later Mexico). The mustangs are called wild but in reality these are feral animals as they are descended from domestic horses. Though popularly considered as an American icon, cowboys are a New Hispanic tradition, which originated in the Central States of Mexico, Jalisco and Michoacán, where the Mexican cowboy would eventually be known as a "charro". Historically, the northern parts of Mexico (New Mexico) originally included most of the territory of the American southwest including Texas. In the early 1600s, the Spanish crown, and later independent Mexico, began offering empresario grants in what would later be Texas to US citizens who agreed to become Mexican citizens and convert to Catholicism. In 1821 Stephen F. Austin and his East Coast comrades became the first yankee community speaking Spanish. Following Texas independence in 1836 even more Americans immigrated into Texas and to the empresario ranching areas. Here they were impressed by the Mexican vaquero culture, borrowing vocabulary and attire from their counterparts. The buckaroo, also a cowboy of the vaquero tradition, developed in California and bordering territories during the Spanish Colonial period. The word Buckaroo, still a common term in the Great Basin and many areas of California and intermittently in the Pacific Northwest, appeared in 1889 in American English, derived (influenced by 'buck', as folk etymology) from bakhara, itself an anglicized alternate since 1827 of 'vaquero', Spanish for cowherd which only entered English one year earlier and itself originates in the Latin vaca 'cow'. Following the American Civil War, their culture diffused eastward and northward combining with the earlier cowboy tradition that was following the cattle trails out of Texas northward and westward. Sharing the same base, their traditions became indistinguishable with a few regional differences still remaining. Over time, the cowboys of the American West developed a culture of their own, a blend of frontier and Victorian values. Such hazardous work in isolated conditions bred a tradition of self-dependence and individualism, exemplified in their songs and poetry. By the 1890s, the open ranges of the Indian Territory were gone and the large cattle drives from Texas to the railheads in Kansas were over. Smaller cattle drives continued at least into the 1940s, with Arizona cattle driven to the railhead at Magdalena, New Mexico. Meanwhile, ranches multiplied all over the developing West, keeping cowboy employment high, if somewhat more settled. In the 1930s and 1940s, Western movies popularized the cowboy lifestyle but also formed persistent stereotypes. In pop culture, the cowboy and the gunslinger are often associated with one another. Much has been written about the racial mix of the cowboys in the West, but cowboys ranked low in the social structure of the period and there are no firm figures. The Cattle on a Thousand Hills by John Ambulo in the March 1887 issue of The Overland Monthly states that cowboys are "... of two classes—those recruited from Texas and other States on the eastern slope; and Mexicans, from the south-western region. ...". Census records bear that out. The cowboy occupation undoubtedly appealed to the freedmen following the Civil War. It is estimated that about 15% of all cowboys were of African ancestry—ranging from about 25% on the trail drives out of Texas, to very few on the northern ranges. Similarly, cowboys of Mexican descent also averaged about 15%, but were more common in Texas and the southwest. American Indians also found employment as cowboys early in the history of the West. Many of the early vaqueros were Indians trained to work for the Spanish missions in caring for the mission herds. Following the dissolution of the reservation system around 1900, many of the Indian trade schools also taught ranching skills to Indian youth.

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