Help with Mark on Eickholt Vase

Can anyone tell me what the letters beneath the year 2006 mean? Looks like USTAG to me. The only thing I've come up with is United States Art Glass, but that's probably wrong.
Thank you for your help!

 

People seem to be reading it as VSTAG, but not clear what that is supposed to mean either. My Eickholt pieces from the 1980s do not have this notation.

According to this site, he announced his retirement in 2013. Maybe some later pieces were produced by his workshop with less direct input from him? This gallery might know.

https://www.sapergalleries.com/Eickholt.html

 

Seller of this one thought some kind of 'production code'. Probably a WAG.

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/robert-eickholt-art-glass-dichroic-1791844389

 

This one has VPAG. No explanation

 

I'm still running through possibilities: perhaps the V is for vase, the AG for agate. No clue on the middle.

 

During your musings, please consider that I saw one with VTAG also.

 

I have 2 Eickholt paperweights...(had others plus a vase I sold years ago)..All 3 PWs are signed and also have varied "marks" with letters and #s.

 

He names his pieces; perhaps, this is an abbreviation of the name.

 

VPAG, no?

 

I have 2 paperweights (think I must have given away a third paperweight that was similar to one of the others) & a vase, all bought directly from him at crafts shows. Each has only 'Eickholt' & the year. None are the 'agate' glass, which I don't think he was making then.

 

The signature on the other PW is more compressed than this one & hard to read if you do not already recognize it.

 

Another one I couldn't find again. This one says VOLEC. Love your paperweights. So jealous

 

Other PW:

 

Beautiful!

 

This one really does have a magical quality in the way it shimmers - fairy dust in glass!

 

Exquisite. I am even more jealous!!!!!!!

 

I recently found an Eickholt paperweight with other stuff on the bottom. Here are the photos. I believe the PW was given to someone at Riverside Methodist Hospital (the R. M. H.), a large local hospital, for doing something above and beyond. It also is signed Eickholt 1989. So the initials on your PW may have been inscribed by someone else representing an association, a business, a person or whatever. It would have been an award or gift. Notice the bird in flight in the center. That's always popular with inspirational / motivational awards.

That's how I figured it out, but even with extensive googling, I couldn't find anything on the Jeanette Harter Award and didn't think it important enough to call someone at Riverside.

 

Googling turned up the U.S. Technical Advisory Group.