Mother Nature’s Gift to Glass

QUESTION: My mother loved decorative glassware. She died recently and left me her collection. While some pieces are older, most date from the 1950s and 1960s. I particularly like several vases that look like flowers. Do you know what they are called and tell me a little about their history?

ANSWER: Back in the 1950s and 1960s, many women collected decorative glassware. Most of the pieces came from Fenton Glassware, but several other manufacturers also made a wide assortment of vases, candy and butter dishes, ashtrays, and the like. Many of these feature hobnail decoration. The vases you’re asking about are known as Jack-in-the-Pulpit vases.

To glass lovers the name "Jack-in-the-Pulpit" has become synonymous with glass vases styled to imitate a wild flower. This flower is native to some parts of the United States, but this style of glassware originated in England, where no jack-in-the-pulpit flowers don’t grow. Most likely, this design came from the adaptation of a similar wildflower found in England known as Lords and Ladies.

Like the flower, a glass Jack-in-the-Pulpit vase consists of three parts, a base, a stem and the trumpet. The trumpet is the large flared top which gives the piece its style, much like the trumpet forms the flower on the plant. The stem connects that trumpet to the base, much like the stem connects the flower to its root. Trumpets vary in style, from flared, rounded trumpets, to those with pinched and twisted points in the front and the back. Some trumpets, particularly those by Fenton, have a raised back and dip downward in the front.

Some collectors believe Louis C. Tiffany created the first Jack-in-the-Pulpit vase around 1900. But that isn’t the case. The first known Jack-in-the-Pulpit vase appeared in 1854, a good 40 years before Tiffany’s vases. The style of the early English Jack-in-the-Pulpit vase even more closely resembles the flower. However, English glassmakers at the turn of the century didn’t name their pieces, unlike their American counterparts. Instead, they just gave them a pattern number.

English Jack-in-the-Pulpit vases came from a number of makers, including Thomas Webb & Sons, Richardson's, Webb-Corbett and Stuart, plus many small companies. Some smaller firms subcontracted work out to finishers, so it's possible that one firm decorated the blanks of another. British glassmakers did, however, blow most of their Jack-in-the-Pulpits.

Prices for British Jack-in the-Pulpit vases range from $75 for a piece which can’t be attributed to any particular manufacturer to several thousand dollars for a rare Webb or Stevens & Williams piece. Rare pieces can command $2,000 to $3,000. On average, British pieces go for about $175.

While decoration doesn't seem to have a effect on the price of unattributed British pieces, it does effect the prices of the higher-end ones. Size and the decorations, such as applied glass chainwork, vary. Companies produced vases in opalescent patterns such as spiral optic and   cranberry, and some come in the various colors like Beaded Melon.

Fenton’s Burmese vases are particularly popular with collectors. The company also made decorated Jack-in-the-Pulpits in other types of glass. Fenton decorated white and off-white, called cameo satin, blanks with scenes sell for around $75.

Other noteworthy American producers include Northwood/Dugan, Imperial, Westmoreland, Mount Washington and L.G. Wright. Northwood made jacks in various colors in Carnival glass, a short marigold version being the most common. But Northwood and Dugan also made them in opalescent glass. These generally sell for under $100 apiece.

Step Right Up and Try Your Luck

QUESTION: I just inherited my mother’s collection of carnival glass. I always admired it while growing up, but she never really told me much about it. Now that I have it, I’d like to continue collecting, but I have no idea where to begin. Can you give me some background on carnival glass and also some tips on growing and maintaining my mother’s collection?

ANSWER: Carnival Glass is pressed glass—glass that has been formed by being pressed into a mold while in a hot molten form—that has had an iridescent coating applied. As it cools, it takes on the shape and detail of the mold. Once removed from the mold, and while still somewhat hot, the glassmaker sprays it with metallic salts in liquid form which gives it an "oil-on-water" multicolor appearance. He then refires the piece.

The Fenton Glass of Williamston, West Virginia, first produced carnival glass, which it called "iridescent ware," in 1907. The company called its first line Iridill and labeled it "Venetian Art."  They wanted to mass-produce a product that could compete with the expensive, iridescent art glass made by Tiffany and Steuben. Though half a dozen companies, including Northwood, Imperial, Millersburg, Westmoreland, Dugan, and Cambridge, originally made it, Fenton did so longer than any of the others.

Competition became so fierce between makers that new patterns appeared regularly, so each company ended up making a wide range of patterns of most types adding up to a panoply of choice.

Its eye-catching multicolor shimmer seems to change colors when viewed at different angles. Over the years, carnival glass has been dubbed "Taffeta," "Cinderella," and "Poor Man's Tiffany," as it gave the average housewife the ability to adorn her home with fancy vases and decorative bowls a prices she could afford.
   
But this new type of glass didn’t catch on with the public the way Fenton had hoped, especially since they tried pricing it higher than their regular pieces without the carnival finish. Unfortunately, most consumers didn't see carnival glass as quality glass and refused to pay higher prices for it. Other glass manufacturers soon began making carnival glass using the same iridization techniques. This overloaded the market and soon prices plummeted. To get rid of their excess inventory, carnival glass makers at first began giving it away to carnival owners to use as prizes, but later sold sample pieces to them in hopes that winners could then purchase additional items in the same or a similar pattern. Together all the manufacturers produced over 2,000 different patterns.

This new market for carnival glass was a boon for Fenton, which produced iridescent ware in 150 patterns up until the late 1920s. Carnival glass sold for pennies at five-and-dime stores, and businesses could buy it wholesale at minimal cost. This allowed movie theaters and grocery stores to give it away as premiums. For example, Imperial Glass struck lucrative deals with companies like Woolsworth's and Quaker Oats.

Fenton's earliest patterns included Waterlily and Cattails, Vintage, Butterfly and Berries, Peacock Tail, Ribbon Tie, Wreath of Roses, Thistle, and Diamond and Rib. Among Northwood's first glass patterns were Waterlily and Cattails, Cherry and Cable, and Valentine, but Grape and Cable became their most popular. Millersburg collectors look for Hobstar and Feather, Blackberry Wreath, and Rays and Ribbons.

Collectors call the most popular color of carnival glass “marigold,” although the companies, themselves, didn’t call it that. Marigold has a clear glass base and is the most easily recognizable carnival color. The final surface colors of marigold are mostly a bright orange-gold turning perhaps to copper with small areas showing rainbow or 'oil-slick' highlights. The highlights appear mostly on ridges in the pattern and vary in strength according to the light.

Carnival glass is highly collectible. Prices vary widely, with some pieces worth very little, while other, rare items command thousands of dollars.

However, identifying carnival glass can be a challenge. It involves matching patterns, colors, sheen, edges, and thickness from information contained in old manufacturer's trade catalogs, other known examples, or other reference material. Many manufacturers didn’t include a maker's mark on their product, and some did for only part of the time they produced the glass. Since many manufacturers produced close copies of their rivals' popular patterns, carnival glass identification can be difficult even for an expert.

By 1925, carnival glass started to fall out of favor with Americans, and many U.S. glass companies quit producing it during the Great Depression.