New Martinsville Glass Radiance Hughes Cornflower Cut Crystal Sugar Bowl

No, it isn’t Mickey Mouse.  Those wing handles sure look like big ears, don’t they.  This is the Radiance glassware from the depression era made by New Martinsville Glass and with the luscious Cornflower cutting.

New Martinsville made several patterns like this one during the depression era that had lots of style and pizazz.  Some popular New Martinsville designs are Radiance, shown here, and Janice.  Radiance has those neat looking vertical little raindrops on the sides and those retro solid handles.

Depending on who you listen to and what book you read, Radiance is elegant glass or it’s depression glass.  It is good quality with some hand finished details like ground base rims which qualifies it for elegant glass status.  New Martinsville made Radiance in colors plus crystal.

The Cornflower cutting is a design from Hughes in Canada.  It’s distinctive with cross-hatching in the flower centers and feathery flower petal edges.  It’s a great combination with this snazzy Radiance shape.  The photo below shows this cutting up close so you can enjoy.

Hughes Cornflower Cutting Detail on Radiance Crystal

Princess Pink Depression Glass Sherbet

Thank you to Beverly from How Sweet the Sound for hosting Pink Saturday.  What a perfect color for cheerful thoughts of spring.

Up today is our Princess.  This is pink depression glass from Hocking, made about 1931 to 1935 when the country was deep in the Great Depression.  Pink glassware – and blue, amber, green and amethyst – was given away as premiums or offered with coupons.  It was a good way for the thrifty housewife to get something beautiful for her family while saving money.

Today we can tell the pieces in patterns that were not popular premiums and those that ladies needed to send in hard-to-find cash to get.  Those are the pieces that are more expensive or harder to find.  Sherbets are fairly common in most depression glass patterns but not so readily available in pink Princess.

Sherbets are fun pieces.  You can use them for a fruit cup, to serve applesauce, yogurt or cottage cheese, fill them with berries, custard and cream, use them for cake with lemon sauce and even use them for sherbet.

Pink isn’t just for Saturday.  And pink depression glass is a fun way to enjoy pink, beautiful glass, and a link to our history.

We have a good selection of pink Princess in our store Cat Lady Kate’s Elegant and Depression Glass and offer coupons to our blog and newsletter subscribers.  Just use coupon news when you check out.

Dogwood Pink Depression Glass Tumbler

It’s cold outside and spring seems such a long time away.  Let’s cheer ourselves up with a few days of pink.  Pink isn’t just for Valentine’s Day any more.

Today I’m showing off one of our rare pieces of depression glass, the water tumbler in Dogwood depression glass from MacBeth Evans.  Tumblers are always among the more scarce pieces in vintage glassware patterns and Dogwood is no exception.  This one has the design screened on – not flat paint but a raised knobby like decoration.  It’s very pretty and this 12 ounce size is even harder to find than others.

If you like flowers you recognize the four petals as being Dogwood but for some reason this pattern is nicknamed Appleblossom.  Apple blossoms have five petals.  Maybe it’s because the design is just so pretty and feels like spring.

We have a good selection of Dogwood pink depression glass.  I was able to get several pieces from a dealer who was closing down and almost everything is in great shape.  As time passes it’s getting harder to find depression glass in such good shape, so come check us out.

Welcome to the first Tablescape Thursday with Elegant and Depression Glass to Share.  Thank you for visiting and thank you to Susan of Between Naps on the Porch for hosting this fun event.

It’s nearly Valentines Day so let’s go pink with a romantic table for two set with vintage glass and linens.  Let’s enjoy a beautiful combination of pink depression glass, crystal candle holders, rose pink taper candles and a tablecloth that my mom embroidered that I cherish.

Petal Swirl Pink Depression Glass Table for Two

The dinner plates, serving bowl, cups and saucers are Petal Swirl by Jeannette Glass.  Jeannette made this pattern from 1937 to 1938 and it’s a handsome design with strong lines and flair.  The rims have a pressed spiral and the centers have concentric ribbed circles.  You can see this is a good use of shape and pattern to make an appealing design.  You can read more about Petal Swirl here.

Petal Swirl & Homespun Pink Depression Glass Place Setting

I sold our small bowls just before taking the picture so used Homespun fruit bowls.  I picked these because the pattern is another geometric with strong lines that complement the Swirl glass.  This pattern is another of Jeannette’s that, like Petal Swirl, is less well known and under appreciated compared to other Jeannette depression pink glassware.  Homespun has thin vertical ribs on the sides and a pressed square honeycomb pattern in the center.  It’s a good pattern too, but I must admit I like Petal Swirl better.

Homespun Pink Depression Glass Bowl

How about a glass of wine with this?  Since this table setting is all about lines and geometry I picked a set we have from Libbey that has a simple etched line on the bowl.

Libbey Glass Crystal Single Etched Line Stem

The beautiful swirled lines and graceful shapes of the plates and center bowl just cry for a beautiful candle holder set.  We get to enjoy our candles in a pair of contemporary crystal low holders from Italy.  These look like Cambridge Caprice or Paden City Largo elegant glassware and go so well with our Petal Swirl dinner set.

Rock Aurea Contemporary Crystal Candleholders

My favorite part of this tablescape is the tablecloth.  You can see it’s meant for a bridge table.  My Mom and Dad used to have friends over to play cards and Mom always liked to use the cloths she embroidered by hand.  I received this when she died and cherish it because she made it.  It has pink flowers and green leaves, very style and a rolled edge.  We have the matching napkins but I didn’t put them out today.

Mom's Tablecloth Detail

I hope you enjoyed reading about our Valentine’s Day romantic dinner for two with pink depression glass.  You can see all the glass posted here in our store, Cat Lady Kate’s Elegant and Depression Glass.   Please leave a comment to let me know how you liked this post.  It’s new for me and a lot of fun to write about our glass for sale.

Elegant Glass: Early, Depression, & Beyond by Coe & Coe

Welcome to Book Report Sunday.  Tonight is my favorite reference book for elegant glass, Elegant Glass: Early, Depression, & Beyond by Coe & Coe.

Elegant glass is “good glass”, the sort that people bought at jewelry and high end department stores, by makers like Fostoria, Cambridge, Heisey.  It took skilled artisans to produce this glassware because it took quite a bit of hand work.  Seams were minimized by fire polishing and bottoms were ground.  The etching and cut decorations were done on each piece individually.

If you want detailed coverage of one specific manufacturer you can find books that cover only one company.  I counted at least nine books about Fostoria Glass and there are about that many about Cambridge too.  This book covers patterns from many companies from the 1920s through the 1970s.

Good Points about this Book:

• Excellent clear photos
• Comprehensive lists of pieces.
• Dimensions are given for almost everything.  For example goblets are given in terms of the volume they hold and height which is very helpful
• The value guide is realistic.  Of course it is too high sometimes and too low for others but in general this is reasonably good and very useful.
• I like the way it shows the different colors and gives values for those.
• It makes no pretense to try and put a dollar price on extremely rare pieces especially on very popular patterns
• The book includes glass from the depression era through the 1970s.  Other general elegant books limit themselves to certain eras only

Could Be Improved:

• Of course more patterns would be even better.
• I would like to see more descriptive information.  For example, Cambridge etched Rose Point on at least five different blanks and it would be great to see them photographed together so you can get a feel for the distinctive characteristics of each.  The price list includes the blank numbers but you have to hunt around to find a picture that will show the blank.

Overall this is a superb book that you need if you intend to collect, enjoy or sell elegant glass.  I rely on this book as one of my primary reference tools.  The link above is an affiliate link.

Petal Swirl Pink Depression Glass Salad Bowl

Now here is a pink depression glass pattern that is easy on the eyes, easy to collect and easy to enjoy.  The pattern is Swirl, called Petal Swirl by Jeannette Glass.

You can see the swirl design on the sides of the salad bowl and the scalloped rim around the top.  This is one of the pink depression glass patterns you can collect and enjoy every day if you choose.

Jeannette made this only two years, 1937 to 1938, and in a full dinner set with many accessory pieces like a vase, pitcher, butter dish, candle holder and candy dish.  It’s a good pattern that doesn’t have a lot of spots that nick easily; it’s reasonably sturdy.  Yet for some reason it is not terribly expensive.  People like it; they don’t pursue it as much as you would think.  For example the 9 inch salad bowl is under $30, certainly among the most affordable patterns.

Besides pink Jeannette made this in ultra marine teal and solid blue delphite.  The teal is really pretty too.

We have a good set of the pink so please check us out!

Etched Drops & Bands Etched Vintage Crystal Stemware

I wish I knew who did this.  It’s a simple shape with straight stem and rounded bowl with straight sides.  The etch – or sand blast – is a solid band with joined lines that have little dangles hanging down.

So who did it?  One possibility is Tiffin.  They made a stem that Gene Florence called Tiara and the Replacements book Tiffin is Forever A Stemware Identification Guide calls SB 602, sand blast.  The top design just above the solid band on the Tiffin picture shows linked circles and mine is plain above the solid band.

OK, what other possibilities?

Another idea is Seneca number 283, which is similar but also not quite a perfect match.  Seneca 283 has a thin double line above the band.

Anyone else have an idea?  These are obviously old, my guess is they go back to around World War 2 based on the style of the etch and the shape of the glass.  They are reasonably good quality but not high end.

These were most likely meant to be wine goblets but they are small for our contemporary tables where we tend to use goblets that hold 8 ounces or more for wine.  Today these would be perfect for an apertif or after dinner brandy.

Back in the era when there were many makers of fine quality glass in eastern United States the companies often had similar wares, similar designs, similar colors, similar etches.  This is partly because good ideas travel but also the artisans moved around.  Companies traded molds.  Other companies specialized in decorations and made no glass but decorated other makers’ ware.  These situations make it difficult to identify some pieces.

That’s ok though.  We can enjoy the glass even when we can’t call it by name.

Tiffin Glass June Beau Cut Crystal Cocktail Stem

Tiffin Glass survived until 1980, outlasting so many of the American glass houses.  They operated as Factory R, a unit of the U.S. Glass company.  Tiffin was known especially for their beautiful stemware.  The piece shown here is a good example.

This is cut crystal, not etched, and the name is a pun.  You can just see the bow like a ribbon in the front of the bowl, thus the name June Beau.  Once you stop groaning from the pun you can agree that it’s a clever name that fits the design.

What I like most about this stem is the shape.  The wide section near the top of the rim is a rounded wafer studded with little beads like a collar.  The blank is sometimes called Pearl Collar, most appropriate and something you won’t have a problem remembering.

I like the graceful flare of the bowl and the ribbing on the stem that makes this easy to hold.  This particular stem is the liquor cocktail; it’s a little small for a sherbet and a nice size for a small after dinner drink or cocktail.

It’s fun to have a variety of stems to use for drinks.  You can mix and match and not feel like everything has to match since it’s not on a formal table setting.  Go ahead and have fun with Tiffin stemware.

Florence Depression Glass 19th Edition

Today’s our first Book Review Sunday, where I’ll go over some good – and not so good – reference books about elegant or depression glass. Today it is Gene and Cathy Florence’s Collector’s Encyclopedia of Depression Glass, which is the last in this best-selling series. I’ve read that Florence’s ongoing series of books, updated every 2-3 years since the early 1970s, are best sellers in the collector / hobby genre, and I can believe it based on my experience.

This latest – and last – offering in Florence’s series is the 19th edition.  The changes from #18 are minor.  Florence added no new patterns; some of the photos are new but by no means all.  The prices for many patterns were adjusted, mostly downwards.

Positives for the Book

• Florence has detailed piece lists, many with dimensions.  This is very helpful if you need to decide whether your piece is the dinner plate or chop plate.
• Florence includes his observations about the pattern, whether it sells well or has reproductions or how common it is, for each pattern.  Most of these are interesting; some are entertaining.  In this edition I noticed fewer comments of the “seller didn’t know what they had” type which is an improvement.
• The text explains some of the confusing pieces and gives detailed dimensions.  I have a big set of Patrician to list and relied on Florence’s clear description to decide whether I had jam dishes, cereal bowls or butter bottoms.
• He mentions patterns that have been reproduced in the body and gives more details in the back section.  He covers each pattern that has been reproduced clearly and gives tips to distinguish real from repro.
• This 19th edition, like the last few, has piece guides and photo legends which is great.  After selling glass for over 10 years I don’t need this quite so much, but if this had been available when I first started it would have been great.  As it is, some patterns have goofy shapes that become clear with the photo legend.
• Lots of color pictures.
• Price.  Amazon lists this for $16.47, and if you can find another $9 book or what have you, you get free shipping.  Florence stressed that he and Collectors Books worked hard to keep the book affordable and it certainly is reasonable for all the quality information.

Not So Positive

• The repro section gives good information but shows photos of the repros.  It would be more useful if it included side-by-side photos with the comparisons.  Of course this would have taken more pages and probably increased the price.  Personally I’d have gladly paid another few dollars for this.
• Photos are good for the most part.  There are a few where a close up would have been helpful.  Confusing patterns, like Old Cafe vs. Fortune, would be easier to tell apart with detailed pattern shots.
• Like any price guide this is user beware.  I’ve written before about my Eureka moments about price guides.  You simply cannot take these as gospel truth.  Do your research and know what your business strategy is when you set your own prices whether buying or selling.

Why You Shouldn’t Rely on Price Guides

• One canard this book should dispel is that there is any relationship between Florence’s price lists and whether he is buying or selling.  Since he retired this year he is most likely in a selling mode – and his prices are mostly down.  Like any successful person Florence attracted his share of criticism, both real and not.  This is one nasty story that can be put to bed.

My Recommendation

If you collect, buy or sell vintage glass, you need this book.  Even if you do not collect or sell depression glass, it is useful to know what you see when you see it.  And if  you do collect or sell depression glass this is essential.  Buy the book.

Note about the links.  These are affiliate links.  I believe in this product.

New Martinsville Square Pink Elegant Depression Glass Etched Bowl

Isn’t this pretty?  It is line number 36 from New Martinsville Glass in a beautiful medium pink.  It was sold to me as Cambridge and the photo wasn’t too good so I was surprised and delighted to have a mystery on my hands.

Recently someone told me they had a whole set of this but never knew what it was.  Since this was one of the more challenging id jobs lately, I thought you might like to follow the Glass Detective Lady as she solves tricky glass cases.

Several companies made square-ish glass, Fostoria’s Mayfair, Central’s line 1450, Paden City Crow’s Foot and of course, New Martinsville.   I started there.

This looked kinda sorta like a Paden City pattern I remembered seeing in my Paden City book.  Nope.  Not Paden City.  Ruling out Fostoria and Central was easy since they didn’t have the extra little nubs in the middle of the sides.  That left New Martinsville.

Unfortunately my New Martinsville book is not as helpful as my others – the photos are sparse and some are hard to make out – and it covers the more extensive patterns.  I use Replacements website for identification a lot but they didn’t have this line.  New Martinsville made similar shapes, one is called Fancy Squares but it has rounded scallops and corners, not these prominent little fingers in the corners and nubs on the edges.

New Martinsville Square Pink Glass Etched Candleholder

Somewhere in all this research I came across line 36 and noted it in my database but promptly forgot.  (Hard to be a detective when you can’t remember anything for more than 30 minutes.)  I didn’t have any luck finding the etch.  A few weeks ago I got the bowl out again to list it and checked the Chat About Depression Glass pattern gallery.  This is an excellent site backed by some true experts, and sure enough, there was my bowl.  Mystery solved.

The silly thing is when I listed it I realized I have the amber center handled server in the exact same pattern identified correctly.