An Unlikely Result of the Black Death

 

QUESTION: My family is German by descent. And being so, my grandfather assembled a collection of German beer steins. He left them to me. Rather then just have them sit on a shelf, I’d like to grow the collection. I don’t know anything about antique or even vintage steins and would like to know more before I purchase additional ones. How did steins originate? When were the first ones produced? And how can I tell if a stein has value? 

ANSWER: Those are all good questions. I’m glad to see that you’re interested in curating your grandfather’s collection rather then just packing the steins away or selling them off. 

Believe it or not, German beer steins have a very unlikely and surreal origin. Originally, the Germans produced beer steins to combat health issues that triggered the Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death which killed over 25 millions Europeans. Around the same time, hoards of flies began invading central Europe in the late 1400s. The fly invasion, combined with the plague, resulted in Germany passing sanitary laws that required all food and beverage containers to have lids to protect people from the insects.

Strict laws enforcing sanitation on the ingredients, transport, and quality of beer led to a great improvement in the taste of German beer. This made men value beer steins, thus wanting to own their own unique steins. The beer stein became a status symbol and display piece for German families each displaying its family crest.

Beer steins are a popular symbol for both Germany and beer. They come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and materials, including earthenware, metal, pewter, wood, ivory, ceramic, porcelain, crystal, creamware, silver, and glass. Most have handles, a hinged lid and are decorated or hand-painted.

The decorative elements of beer steins may represent traditional motifs, regalia, a coat of arms, or depict a person’s occupation. Some are embellished with three-dimensional artwork and touch on a theme. You may also find a collectible series of beer steins with themed artwork or antique steins with engraved dates to commemorate a special occasion.

The earliest antique German beer steins date to the 14th century, a time when earthenware was being improved, Germany was making new and improved brews, and Europe was ravaged with the bubonic plague.

From the 14th to the 17th centuries, German potters added salt, cobalt oxide blue, manganese oxide purple, and chocolate salt glaze to their steins. To go beyond simple decoration, they applied relief decorative shields, as well as historical, figurative, and Biblical scenes.

Beer steins evolved as a result of the laws passed in several German principalities stating that covers had to be on all beverage and food containers. The laws, and others related to sanitary conditions, were in reaction to the fear that a recurrence of the bubonic plague, also called the Black Death, would be caused by several invasions of flies throughout Central Europe in the mid to late fifteenth century. Up until that time, most common folk drank beer from mugs made of porous earthenware or wood. The well-to-do and upper class drank from glass, pewter or silver vessels, called beakers or tankards.

Stein is a shortened version of the word steinzeug krug, which means stoneware, tankard, or jug in German. A stein was just one of a variety of beer drinking vessels. The word transformed into staene, meaning jug in Old English. The English version, stein, appeared in 1855. In common usage, stein referred to any beer vessel with a hinged lid and handle.

Germans originally drank beer in mugs, but once the sanitary laws passed, these mugs came with a hinged lid with a thumblift. This ensured the mug could not only stay covered but could also be used to drink out of using only one hand using the thumblift.

Once the 16th century began, regulations regarding the quality and transportation of German beer resulted in better tasting beer and a variety of steins. The improved beer brought patrons to taverns, as well as the desire to own a personal stein.

By the mid-17th century, German beer and stoneware beer steins were in high demand. The elite members of the German society wanted elaborately decorated steins made of silver, pewter, or glass which were made in Bavaria, Koblenz and Koln.

As personal steins became more popular, Germans wanted durable but inexpensive containers out of which to drink their clean beer. Stein makers began searching for better materials. Eventually, they created stoneware which proved to be a superior material that was chip-resistant and non-porous. It was the perfect component for a container that needed to meet sanitary conditions.

Artisans began decorating tankards with scenes depicting towns throughout southern and Western Germany, like Heidelberg and Rothenburg. They also created artistic scenes that captured biblical, allegorical, and historical events.

By the late 18th century, the covered-container laws had run their course, but because the Germans had covered their beverages for three centuries, lids became an integral part of all steins. 

The 18th-century trends continued to rise in popularity. The Bavarians had over 4000 breweries, and stoneware production increased into the late 1700s.

European porcelain started affecting stein-making in the 1720s, but these steins were expensive, so only wealthy Germans could afford them.

Just as steins improved, so did the beer. Most people considered beer to be an effective medicine. It was also safer to drink beer than water due to its sanitary production process.

As wars and rebellions decreased the wealth and power of the aristocrats, so stein makers began looking to the middle class as their target market and made products to fit their lifestyles.

Cylindrical pewter steins became popular, and especially those with stamped or engraved folk art designs. The wealthy still preferred porcelain beer steins with Baroque decorations. But by the early 19th century, most Germans preferred pewter steins for everyday use.

By 1850, beer steins featured Renaissance motifs and relief decorations. They also had inlaid porcelain lids. 

Stoneware became popular once again after 1850. Makers used molds instead of the expensive and labor-intensive handbuilt process. Although more affordable and convenient, the molded tankards were no longer considered authentic German beer steins, as they were being mass-produced.

Moisture-absorbing plaster molds helped porcelain stein producers make unique shapes and the lithophane scenes that are commonly found on the bottom of porcelain steins.

Classically trained artists from the Mettlach factory introduced Renaissance motifs into their line of relief steins. They experimented with clay and glazes, which led to colorful mosaic and etched beer steins. People loved these beautiful creations so much that even laborers were willing to spend their week’s pay for one of them.

The German beer steins produced from the mid-19th to early 20th century saw a resurgence in the popularity of stoneware steins decorated with Renaissance designs and motifs. These steins were made using clay from the Koln area, which has a distinctive white color. They were 

decorated in the Renaissance style, often having relief decorations and colored them colored them using a gray salt glaze, topped with lids of inlaid porcelain

The 20th century witnessed a decrease in Classical designs. Instead, people favored scenes depicting towns, social scenes, military commemorative, and occupational emblems. These kinds of motifs felt more common but personal to the individual. To meet the demands, pottery makers entered the scene and started making stoneware and glazed pottery beer steins.

The newest art style, Art Nouveau, grew a small but dedicated audience in early 1900, but by 1910, the political and economic landscape turned the stein-making industry upside down. World War I demanded that the materials used to make beer steins be converted for ammunition production. 

The first molded steins were made in the region of Westerwald by Reinhold Hanke. Once molds were used and beer steins were being mass produced, the beautiful highly detailed carved relief work of the early steins was no longer unique.

Beer steins come in a range of volumes, from one ounce to eight gallons. Steins most commonly fall in the 16.9-ounce range. Steins can sell for under $50 or over $5,000, but many sell in the $100 to $500 range.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 50,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Halloween Horrors" in the 2025 Fall Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Jewelry as Wearable Art

 

QUESTION: My mother loved costume jewelry and had many, many pieces. But, years ago, when she asked if I wanted her necklaces, pins and earrings, I responded, "That junk!" Recently, I was going through some of her things and found a jewelry box full of the stuff. Is it worth anything? If not, I’m going to give it to Goodwill.

ANSWER: Believe it or not, your mother’s costume jewelry may be worth more than you ever imagined, depending on its condition and who made it. Many collectors consider it a form of wearable art and a reflection of the wearer’s personality.

Essentially, costume jewelry has been around for a long time. Artificial jewels and adornments have been worn for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians wore bib necklaces and chokers. The ancient Greeks wore hoop earrings as well as studs and pendants. The Romans wore glass and gold bracelets. 

During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, women wore brooches, necklaces and hairpieces of real and imitation materials. Men wore earrings and paste buckles an their shoes. By this time, jewelry represented social status and wealth as well as political and religious importance. Queen Elizabeth I wore gowns encrusted with sewed on paste (rhinestones), glass, and pearls in the 16th century. 

And during the Victorian Era, women desired small, tasteful, gold, pearl and diamond jewelry. Along with rigid mores and controlled expression went the "repressed" designs of that era drab, dark and understated.

Not everyone could afford the real thing though, so middle and working-class women wore "imitation" paste jewelry, or items made out of less inexpensive materials such as   coral and jet. Yet, it took the same amount of labor to create these "false" gems as it did to produce the real. Victorian jewelry makers hard set glass in claws rather than glued in hand painted brooches. As labor was cheap, women of leaser means could afford something beautiful. And jewelry makers attempted to make imitation jewelry as close to the real thing as possible so no one could tell the difference.

Through the Edwardian Era, most jewelry was understated and dainty, although some    Edwardian clothing was heavy with beadwork to display a woman's wealth and status. Edwardian women loved costume jewelry as well—glass imitating emeralds, rubber appearing as jet, and marcasites posing as diamonds.

But then came the Jazz Age in the 1920s. . Women stepped out of their corsets and into the automobile. Strict Victorian codes of behavior fell by the wayside. Further, the austerities demanded by World War I caused the interest in precious jewelry to fade. Finally, costume jewelry began to come into its own.

Some say it was Coco Chanel who ordered specific jewelry to go with her latest "costume."  Designers created so-called "fashion jewelry and sold it at jewelry counters in department stores. Costume jewelry, considered low-line, was sold in the notions departments.

It was designer Coco Chanel who, first mixed faux jewelry with real, urging women to layer of bracelets and use other pieces with her   clothing collections. By the end of the 1920s, most couture houses such as Lanvin and Schiaparelli, had teamed up with jewelers who created faux lines to accompany their collections. 

The discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922 spurred the popularity of Egyptian-style jewelry that endured to the end of the 1930s. Women preferred black and white, so jewelry designers began using combinations of crystal and onyx, and ivory, marcasite and ebony. The cultured pearl first appeared in the 1920s and Bakelite, celluloid and other synthetic plastics had already been invented. Women wore jewelry in numerous colors of plain, multicolored and carved plastics, some accented with rhinestones and pearls. 

American women welcomed the new costume jewelry craze, and during the 1920s and 1930s, such designers as Hattie Carnegie and Miriam Haskell, who created high-end, beautifully made costume jewelry sold in such retail outlets as Saks Fifth Avenue. The working girl wasn’t forgotten, however, and in spite of, or maybe because of, the Great Depression, she wanted to put some glamor in her life, too. Maybe she couldn't afford to buy a new outfit, but she could save her money and purchase a paste or marcasite pin for 19 cents to liven up an old dress. 

Eisenberg originally made rhinestone dress clips and pins to enhance his line of Eisenberg Original clothing. But as pins continued to be stolen off his dresses, it was suggested that he maintain a store to satisfy demand for the pins. That was the beginning of the Eisenberg rhinestone jewelry business. Eisenberg always used the finest, most flawless Austrian stones from Swarovski. There are few stones of this quality anywhere, at any price today. During the 1970s, an Eisenberg necklace sold for $50. Today, that same necklace can go for as high as $1,000.

With the advent of World War II, costume jewelry factories were converted into producing supplies suppliers for the military. Many materials used in the production of costume jewelry became unavailable. Jewelry makers were forced to use sterling silver as white metal was being used in the war effort. Some designers used wood or leather as alternatives and vermeil (gold wash over sterling) was also popular. But sterling silver wasn’t only expensive but it tarnished. So after the War, most costume jewelry producers dropped its use and returned to using metals such as rhodium which is extremely durable and keeps its original shine. That’s why jewelry made with rhodium 45 years ago still has the brilliance it had the day it was made. White and gold-colored metals have remained in use for costume jewelry up to the present.

After the war, women wanted to glitter up. The biggest change came during the 1950s and 1960s, when women broke with tradition and began to wear sparkling jewelry during the day as well as in the evening. Femininity and the look of luxury were in. Politics aside, this revisionist time produced some of the most beautiful costume jewelry ever. Huge pins, large rings and bracelets, dangling earrings were de rigeur at any time of day or night. The big pin explosion large, gem-encrusted spirals, comets and stars-brightened the simple, tailored day clothes of the early I960s.

Designers to look for include Castlecliff, Lisner, Mazer, Emmons (forerunner of Sarah    Coventry), Ciner, Jomaz, Weiss, Richter and Schreiner, to name but a few.

Techniques for making fine costume jewelry remain time-consuming even today. Casting, molding, and stone settings are still done by hand for the best pieces, and they become collectible and increase value almost as seen as they disappear from the marketplace. While machines made lesser lines which can be found by the hundreds in department and variety stores. The jewelry treasured today, such as early marcasite and plastic jewelry, were also made by machines With the imprimatur of age, nobody  calls costume jewelry junk anymore.

It used to be that costume jewelry could be found at garage and yard sales in bags marked “Junk Jewelry—$5 takes it all.” Today, that’s most unlikely, especially in the suburbs around big cities. The early 1990s saw a rapid escalation in prices as marked costume jewelry became a "hot" collectible especially high-end big city shopping areas and popular tourist destinations. Prices escalated into the stratosphere as collectors searched for less common examples. This was the result of European buyers paying huge sums to dealers for American-made costume jewelry, then selling it for even higher prices overseas. But over time, prices began to settle. And while those for the best pieces stayed high, the prices for mid to lower-range pieces dropped.

As with many vintage collectibles, reproductions by some former jewelry makers, such costume jewelry makers, such as Eiisenberg, affected the costume jewelry market by the end of the 20th century. These piece, using leftover materials from former production lines,  are often sold a special limited editions and come with a certificate of authenticity. As with other limited edition collectibles, these pieces usually sell to novice collectors and rarely appreciate in value. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Halloween Horrors" in the 2025 Fall Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Home Entertainment Before the Phonograph

 

QUESTION: I have a Gem Roller Organ that has been in my family for some time.  It spent the last few years in the attic.  The bellows seem to be working and the keys respond to the pins, but it has stopped playing.  What can you tell me about it? Also, can it be repaired?

ANSWER: You’ve got one of the original Gem Roller Organs produced by the Autophone Company of Ithaca, New York.  Since it’s intact and in relatively good condition, it most likely needs cleaning, which you should have done by a professional who works on music boxes and gramophones.

In 1884, the Autophone Company developed a hand-cranked roller reed organ which operated by forcing air out through reeds under pressure with exposed bellows. The musical notes were traditionally represented by wire bridges or staples, which were formed by hand according to the length of each note and inserted at the correct location around the circumference of the barrel. As the barrel was turned, the projections operated a valve mechanism to admit air into the musical pipes or reeds.

The company named its most common and least expensive one, a vacuum-operated model, “The Gem Roller Organ.” It was basically a 20-note suction-operated reed organ in a light wooden table-top case measuring 14.5 inches wide, 12 inches deep, and 8 inches high, and weighing 6.5 pounds.

The roller consisted of a solid wood cylinder measuring a little over 6 inches long and nearly 2 inches in diameter. It had a mounting hole with a metal bushing at each end, and an offset drive hole at the left-hand end. Tiny pins, standing .05 inches above the surface of the roller, resulted in 110 pins per revolution. 

The roller made three complete turns per tune, with the pins arranged on a spiral path of .10 inch pitch. The physical length of each tune equaled 16.5 inches or 330 pins, creating a playing time of about 40 seconds, giving an effective "roll speed" of only 2 feet per minute and a time resolution of 8 pins per second. The mechanical alignment needed to be precise at this speed, as timing errors from bent pins or pallets were very noticeable.

The company produced over 1,000 different rollers, containing a broad selection of religious, military, operatic, and music-hall tunes that were popular from the 1880s through the 1890s.

Autophone mounted the roller, drive mechanism, and pallet valves on cast-iron brackets on the top front section of the case. Workers mounted the brass reeds on the inside of the sloping panel, directly behind the pallets. They mounted the pumping bellows or feeders in the lower section of the case, with the reservoir at the top rear. Black rubberized “bellows cloth” covered the rear section of the reservoir which moved up and down as the instrument plays

The roller organ had an ingenious drive mechanism that was both simple and effective. Two short horizontal shafts held the roller between them and an arm drove it at its left-hand end. The springs on the support shafts pushed the roller towards the left, allowing it to travel .30 of an inch to the right as the tune progressed 

After two more turns, the flattened pin attached to the roller shaft reached the tab on the forked arm, just as the tune came to its end. With another turn of the crank, the pin pressed downwards on the arm, which in turn pushed the roller frame forward clearing  the keys. The forked arm then pulls the roller frame rearward and engages the driving worm, ready to start again. Multiple verses of a song or hymn can be played continuously just by continuing to crank.

The lower ends of the keys were bent upwards to engage with the pins on the rollers. The pins pushed the keys about .040 of an inch, amplified by the lever arms into a  movement at the pallets. The keys oscillated slightly as a succession of pins passed, giving a tremolo effect to the longer notes.

A set of 20 brass reeds, mounted in a wooden block attached to the inside face of the sloping front panel, immediately behind the pallet valves, produced the music. Air entered through the slots in the front face when the pallets were lifted, passing through the reeds into the reservoir, and out through the feeder bellows underneath.

The reed block, machined from a solid block of wood, measured 1.75 inches high by 7 inches long. The roller organ had no soundboard. The sound radiated directly from the reeds and through the pallet openings. The music box had no way to control the volume.

The roller organ’s design placed the lower notes in the upper section of the block, so that the greater leverage of the longer keys would give a greater opening distance and a less-restricted air flow.

The Gem Roller Organ used conventional American organ reeds which had flat tongues and produced a strong sound. These produced a musical scale of 20 selected notes over 3 octaves. All instruments using the same-size rollers used the same scale, but the actual key and pitch often varied.

Because of its relative simplicity, the company was able to keep the cost of its roller organ affordable. Sears & Roebuck, in their 1902 Catalog, offered the Gem Roller Organ for as low as $3.25, including three rollers. Contracting with Autophone to produce large quantities of these devices enabled Sears to sell in volume and keep its price low.

The Gem Roller Organ, available in either a painted black or walnut-like finish with gold stenciled applied designs, used teeth or pins embedded into a 20-note wooden roller, similar to the cylinders used in Swiss music boxes. Pins operated on valve keys while a gear turned the roller. The mass-produced 20-note rollers, priced as low as 18 cents each—and according to the Sears Catalog, less than the price of a traditional sheet of music—played a wide range of tunes, from classical to sacred to ethnic and popular tunes. The 1902 Sears Catalog listed 220 different rollers of the over 1,200 different titles then available. 

The tone of a roller organ was similar to a cabinet parlor organ of the time. At 16 inches long, 14 inches wide and 9 inches high, the Gem Roller Organ was small and light enough to place on a parlor table. 

Since Autophone usually printed the manufacturing date on the bottom of the case, it’s relatively easy to date the device, itself. All rollers show a copyright date of July 14, 1885, even though the Autophone sold them from the late 1880's through the late 1920's—an amazing lifespan for a single basic design. Their success may be attributed to the full, rich sound and pleasing music arrangements offered on the rollers.

Unfortunately, roller organs quickly fell out of favor after the introduction of the phonograph around the turn of the 20th century even though they cost much less than disk or cylinder music boxes manufactured during the same period. Considered the common-mans form of entertainment since music boxes and other instruments were much more expensive, roller organs could be found in many middle class homes. Most eventually ended up in the attic, in the barn, or simply thrown away. Today, roller organs sell for anywhere from $350 to over $800, depending on the condition and the number of rollers included. The rollers, themselves, sell for about $20 each.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Sporting Life" in the 2025 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Dorflinger Glass Was Brilliant

 

QUESTION: My mother liked to collect antique glassware. Her favorite was cut crystal. She often purchased items from a particular dealer in town. One of these objects was a tall vase with a concaved shape that was cut with a variety of intricate designs. I now have her collection and would like to begin identifying the pieces. She collected what she liked and didn’t really care to know what the pieces were. To begin, I’d like to know which factory made this magnificent vase. And also how to identify other pieces in this collection.

ANSWER: Based on the cut designs in the vase, it seems that it may have been made or at least cut by artisans at the Dorflinger Glass Company in White Hills, Pennsylvania.

The Victorians learned a lot about people’s manners and status from their tableware. The type and pattern of crystal indicated a person of a higher economic status. In the United States, this type of crystal became known as American Brilliant, an art form that with intricate designs and patterns and an unmatched quality. One of the leading producers of American Brilliant was the Dorflinger Glass Company which developed a weightier glass in the 1880s. 

Born in Rosteig in Alsace, France, in 1828, Dorflinger began an eight-year apprenticeship with an uncle at the Cristalleries de Saint-Louis in Lorraine to learn the glassmaking craft. In 1846, after completing his apprenticeship, Dorflinger persuaded his recently-widowed mother to emigrate from France to America in search of better opportunities. Dorflinger, along with his mother, brother Edward, and sisters Catharine, Madeline, Josephine, and Marie, arrived in New York aboard the Shakespeare on September 26, 1846. The family went west for a time where Charlotte and her daughters settled with friends in Oldenberg, Indiana. Christian and his brother Edward returned east to find work in the glass industry.

Dorflinger and his brother found employment at the Excelsior Flint Glass Company in Camden, New Jersey. Excelsior produced pharmacy glassware and also advertised “Rich Cut Glass.” During visits to New York City, Dorflinger became acquainted with Captain Aaron Flower, a former North River pilot and the proprietor of the Pacific Hotel. When Captain Flower and a group of associates formed the Long Island Flint Glass Works to make lamp chimney and lamps for burning coal oil or kerosene in 1852, they asked Dorflinger to head up the new firm. That same year, he married Elizabeth Hagen. 

By 1856, Dorflinger had added a cutting shop with 35 cutting frames and had begun producing rich cut glass tableware in addition to the company’s commercial products, making the Long Island Flint Glass Works a leading manufacturer of cut glass tableware in New York.

In 1860, Dorflinger built a larger glass factory, the Greenpoint Flint Glass Works, on Commercial Street at Newtown Creek on the northern edge of Brooklyn. Dorflinger, in partnership with Nathaniel Bailey, a vice president at the Greenpoint Savings Bank, formed C. Dorflinger & Co. to own and operate the new glass works. The Greenpoint works included a blowing shop to produce blanks for cutting, a cutting shop, wharf facilities, and housing for the factory’s workers. In less than a decade, Dorflinger had become the premier manufacture of cut glass in New York, operating the newest and most advanced glass factories in the city.

By 1861, the Greenpoint Flint Glass Works had received an order for a set of rich cut and engraved glassware from the Lincoln White House. The pattern, character of English and Trish glass during that period, was very light and intense, with no deep cutting. The Great Seal of 'the United States was on each of the 600 pieces. The eagle was facing away from the arrows because there was no war threatening in 1860, when the order had been placed. The state glass service went on to be used for the next 30 years. 

The following year, Dorflinger began experiencing health problems and decided to take a leave of absence and move to the country. In September 1862, Dorflinger purchased a 600-acre farm in Wayne County, Pennsylvania  from his friend Captain Flower. Dorflinger also purchased an additional 350 acres in White Mills, which later became the location of his Wayne County Glass Works. 

In 1863, Dorflinger moved to Wayne County. He sold the Long Island Flint Glass Works, but retained his ownership interest in the Greenpoint Flint Glass Works. White Mills offered all of the elements needed to build and operate a large, modern glass factory. The adjacent Delaware & Hudson Canal delivered coal from nearby Carbondale, Pennsylvania, to fuel the factory’s furnaces, brought in the raw materials needed to make the fine lead crystal glass, and delivered Dorflinger’s finished goods to market.

Dorflinger’s newest glass factory included a five-pot furnace close to the Lackawaxen River in White Mills. He also constructed a cutting shop and seven cottages for the skilled glassblowers he brought over from France. By 1869, the firm employed 182 workers. That same year, Dorflinger opened the St. Charles Hotel to house his visiting business associates, tradespeople, and friends, as well as a company store. In 1875, he added a decorating shop, and in 1883, a new cutting shop and a glassblowing shop.

The Dorflinger Glass Company exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and received a certificate of award for its glass table wares. The heavily cut glassware exhibited at the Centennial Exposition began what is now known as the “Brilliant Period” of cut glassmaking in America, which continued until about 1917.

In 1891, Dorflinger produced a new state table service for President Benjamin Harrison, replacing the Lincoln state service with a more modern design cut in the Russian pattern with the U.S. Coat of Arms engraved on a shield.

 two sons, Charles and Louis, joined the business, and the firm's name changed to C. Dorflinger and Sons, based in Wayne County, Pennsylvania.

Blowing, cutting and engraving were part of the manufacturing process fur more than 60 years. The recipe for glassmaking materials included pure Berkshire sand, imported German potash, lead oxide and cutlet.

Every morning, workers skimmed the glass mixture for impurities. Dorflinger produced pure crystal and colored glass with a high lead content, giving it brilliance and making it easier to cut.

The Dorflinger factory also supplied blanks in hundreds of shapes to a number of cutting shops  for almost 70 years. One such shop was Thomas Gibbons Hawkes, based in Corning, N.Y. During President Grover Cleveland's administration in 1885, Hawkes was asked to supply the White House with 336 pieces of tableware cut in the Russian pattern. Hawkes received 28 dozen blanks manufactured at White Mills, ready for cutting and engraving.

 incorporated several basic motifs into many heavy cut brilliant glass items. Among these were Renaissance, Buzz Star, aka pinwheel, 48-point flash star, a stone engraved rose design, Old Colony, Hobstar (diamond) and a Russian design.

A catastrophic fire of suspicious origin in 1892 heavily damaged some buildings and destroyed others. Dorflinger immediately rebuilt the factory. Five years later, he introduced new lines of tableware that were graceful and light, refined in style and cut in a new intaglio pattern. Buyers could order glass with various degrees of cutting. In 1910, the firm began producing a line of etched glass-ware and lightly cut tableware that was less expensive.    

In 1897, Dorflinger hired an Englishman, Walter Graham, to head the engraving department. Graham introduced stone engraving from his native country to the White Mills factory, creating the modern lighter floral designs known as “Rock Crystal.” In 1901, Dorflinger added a new subsidiary named the Honesdale Decorating Company managed by Austrian Carl F. Prosch. Honesdale Decorating produced a line of gold decorated table ware and a new line of cameo glass in the Art Nouveau style. This new art glass style used color cased glass and acid cutting with gold decoration. 

 introduced a second art glass line in 1907. The Kalana art glass line used acid etching to etch intricate floral designs on colorless glass. Some pieces were also cut and/or engraved. World War I interrupted Dorflinger’s supply of German potash, an essential ingredient used to make the company’s fine lead crystal glass. 

In response, in 1914, Dorflinger developed a third art glass line known as “Reproductions Venetian.” Made in solid pastel colors, this blown glass without decoration hid the imperfections resulting from the lack of potash. Finally, from 1919 to 1921, Dorflinger produced an art glass line known as “Opal Glass” for its opaque, opalescent appearance. These new glassware lines were attempts by the company to appeal to changing tastes as the demand for heavy cut glass began to decline.

Building on his success, he added a third blowing shop in 1902, and a coal gasification plant to produce natural gas for the newest furnace in 1905. At the peak of its operations in the early 20th century, the Dorflinger Glass Factory employed 650 people and was one of the largest enterprises of its kind in the country. The factory employed women as well as men. Women worked in the factory office and in the washing and packing department, but there were also some women cutters.

Christian Dorflinger died in 1915. His sons, Charles and Louis, continued to operate the firm. By the end of World War I, the heavy cut glass of the American Brilliant Period which had been the mainstay of the firm’s output had gone out of favor. The interruption in the supply of German potash during the war years had limited the company’s ability to produce fine lead crystal table ware, and Prohibition further reduced demand for the company’s table and bar ware. Faced with these challenges, the family decided to close the factory in 1921.

 glass is noted for the consistent clarity and brilliance of its lead crystal, the elegance of its designs, and its excellent cutting and engraving. Color cased pieces, in which workers laid colored glass over clear glass, then artisans cut the pattern through the color layer to the clear glass underneath, are among the most prized examples of the company’s work. Collectors also highly value pieces with silver ornamentation, known as silver mounts.

To identify Dorilinger glass, it’s necessary to compare a piece with others in pattern books. The company marked its glass with a small, round paper label depicting three items—a wine goblet, a cordial glass, and a bottom-heavy wine decanter----over which the name DORFLINGER was printed.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Sporting Life" in the 2025 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.