We’ve all seen china with gold trim, with delicate gold lines around the rim or heavier gold in the design. Back in the day elegant glass makers also used gold to jazz up their glass offerings, especially crystal.
Gold ranged from delicate, elegant trims to exuberant lashings of metal to pieces that used encrusted gold to highlight the pattern. Here is a Cambridge Rose Point sherbet with a tasteful thin gold trim around the rims.
Elegant glass makers tended to use gold around the rims more than other places. Here are a few lovely examples, first from Fostoria, this Italian Lace bowl.
The Fostoria bowl shows one downside of gold trim, it wears. Of course you will wash vintage glass by hand, and this helps preserve the gold trim, but it will eventually get thinner. (I recall the silver-trimmed china Dave got me that was “dishwasher safe”. Indeed, it didn’t hurt the dishwasher at all.) Handle the gold with care, do not rub and that will help preserve the trim.
Another way to trim is gold encrusted. Gold encrusted means the pattern itself is highlighted in gold. These can be beautiful. Here is another Rose Point example from Cambridge. This lovely ornate bowl has gold around the rim too.
This Wildflower tray from Cambridge combines gold encrustation with trim on the rim.
Some encrusted pieces are a bit over the top when massed together on a table.
I don’t know whether to call this Monongah Springtime goblet shared with me by James H to be encrusted. The gold on the motif is on the full cartouche, not solely the dancer or the rest of the etch.
Sometimes glass companies used gold as an essential design element as in this Pheasant and Stump candy jar from Heisey.
This pretty server from Paden City gets its Art Deco zing from the painted and gold design.
Although gold trimmed crystal seems more prevalent, you’ll find gold on colored glass as with these next two pieces, both from the 1920s or 30s.
Next post we’ll look at depression glass which also used gold, platinum or silver.