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

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.

New Martinsville Pink Etched Elegant Depression Console Bowl

I am so very lucky, so fortunate.  You see, I get to do exactly what I’ve always dreamed of – run my own business and buy, hold and admire beautiful glass.  I got into this when I found eBay in 1999 and realized that I could start a business.  I found the elegant glass section and was hooked.   I always enjoyed drooling over the wonderful crystal in department stores – and now I had the best of all possible worlds, buying and then selling this wonderful glassware.

I was blown away by the glass on eBay as before that I’d no idea there was a market for this, or reference books, nor any notion of the huge range and diversity of pattern, decoration, color, shape of vintage glass patterns.

This year I’ve decided to focus on selected items, instead of buying anything that looked interesting, and it’s paid off with more repeat customers, easier listings, a nascent community of fellow glass lovers.  The only downside is this means fewer “not sure what this is but it’s got to be something” purchases which always meant stints immersed in the stack of glass reference books.

So to you, my readers, please come along with me to enjoy and explore this beautiful vintage American craft.

New Martinsville Wild Rose Etched Candleholder

We talked before about how I can’t resist etched candle holders, how about you?  Leave a comment and let me know what you think about them.  I’m fascinated with the wide diversity of style and shape and just enjoy the beautiful etches and the neat shapes.

This came from a twice-yearly big flea market about 30 miles from us.  It was trying to rain and was real windy so many vendors were stashing their breakables early when we went into one of the last booths.  It was a youngish man selling vintage pottery with some nice glass including these candle holders.  He thought they were Cambridge and wanted quite a bit for them but everything was half off so he could get out of there.  I thought they were pretty nice although not Cambridge and at 50% off, almost reasonable.  So we got them.

The etch here is New Martinsville Wild Rose.  Sadly New Martinsville etches are not widely known, possibly because there isn’t a great reference book for them.   Prelude is the best known, which New Martinsville started and Viking continued.  I’ve had one other piece of Wild Rose and it is quite a pretty design and a little different from other rose etches.   Take a look at the loops under the center wild rose blossom; that’s how you can tell this pattern.

I’ll get this candle holder listed in the next week.  It’s such fun selling glass because it gives me a great excuse to buy it!

New Martinsville Glass Radiance Amber Cordial

Cute, small, warm looking, what’s not to like?  This small cordial is New Martinsville Radiance amber depression glass and the vertical ridges you see are the design which is repeated on the stem.

Radiance is one of those patterns that you’ll find in books about elegant glass and reference books about depression glass.  New Martinsville was an elegant glass house, although they made many pressed patterns like Radiance, and their quality was not the same caliber as Fostoria or Cambridge.

Radiance came in a bright red, cobalt blue, ice blue, clear and amber.  Before we bought the cordials the only pieces I’d found locally were the honey dish in clear and creamers and sugars.  Radiance is art deco styling with handles that are shaped like wings and strong, definite geometric shapes.  

It’s a nice pattern and these little cordials are cute and unique.