In the early part of the 1930s depression glass patterns featured light, graceful designs – flowers, swags, scrolls, medallions, birds or baskets – then the manufacturers switched to heavier patterns with geometric motifs and from mostly colored to clear.
Companies continued this trend into the 1950s, making geometric patterns in clear, heavier glass. We covered Anchor Hocking’s 1000 Lines, styled like cut glass, in our last post here. Jeannette followed this trend with Dewdrop, a heavy design made in 1953-1956. Dewdrop has wide, smooth bands in between bands of small, shallow hobnails. Most pieces have the little protrusions between the bands as on this punch bowl.
Jeannette made Dewdrop mostly in accessory pieces. I’ve seen several punch bowls and a few base trays from the Lazy Susan and the relish tray in clear. The cups are good sized so you could use them for tea if you like, but there is no saucer. Notice the cups have a smooth rim, no protrusions to make it hard to drink.
Jeannette made a creamer, sugar with lid, pitchers, tumblers, a couple serving bowls, a small bowl, a covered candy dish and a covered butter. You will have to improvise a bit if you want to use Dewdrop for meals because there is no dinner or luncheon plate. You could use the large serving plate, which is over 11 inches wide or else the snack set plate, which is about the right size for a sandwich and apple (or cookies).
This piece is meant to be a Lazy Susan and originally would have had a metal base ring with ball bearings. I got it in a box but missing the metal parts, and I vaguely remember it was labeled as a relish tray. You can see it has dividers so you could use it as a large plate divided for relishes or even to separate different cookies and treats. Also see the gold trim around the edge, this is common.
Gene Florence mentions that some folks bought the rather inexpensive Dewdrop Lazy Susan to use the metal parts with other patterns.
Jeannette made three tumblers, all with smooth rims but I’ve never seen either tumbler.
One pitcher has a flat base and has the little knobs around the rim while the other has a dome foot and smooth rim. (Gene Florence speculated the footed pitcher might be a go-with instead of a valid Dewdrop piece, but it’s hard to see why that would matter.) I think a Dewdrop beverage set of pitcher and matching tumblers would be a fun vintage set.
I had expected to dislike Dewdrop from the pictures in my glass books, and was happily surprised to find it looks much better in person. The glass is good enough quality that the little raised dots catch the light and sparkle and the pieces have a nice charm.
If you like Dewdrop it is affordable and sturdy. The candy and butter are likely the hardest to find and the most costly. I didn’t see either of these nor the tumblers just now (February 2020) on eBay; Replacements had a couple tumblers. It looks like asking prices on eBay are somewhat higher than one would expect with only a couple sales recently. Bear in mind this is heavy when looking at shipping costs.
Jeannette made the pitcher and tumbler in iridescent marigold. I don’t think they made any other carnival pieces or other colors