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.

Wicker's Woven Beauty

QUESTION: I recently purchased a wicker chair at an antique shop. It doesn’t have any markings and the dealer couldn’t tell me much about it. I love this piece and it now occupies a prominent place in enclosed porch. Can you tell me anything about it? And can you also tell me a bit about the origins of wicker?.

ANSWER: Even though wicker has been around for quite a while, your chair originated during the peak of its popularity during the second half of the 19th century. Back then, the ornateness of wicker brought an element of taste to middle-class American homes.

Wicker has a long and interesting history, beginning in ancient Egypt.  The Egyptians wove the first wicker from palms, willows, rush and other materials, into simple boxes, baskets and stools. Although all classes of people owned wicker, it was only the important Egyptians with enough wealth to afford spacious tombs, who had it buried with them to use in their afterlife.

The Romans also used wicker. It played a role in nearly every function of the empire, from taking part in the cultural gatherings to assisting with the day-to-day activities of individual households. Until Roman times, the usual wicker pieces had been boxes, baskets, and stools, but by then wicker furnishings included chests, flexible chairs, divans and reclining chairs.

Back in the 17th century, the Dutch made wicker and brought it to England before sailing across the Atlantic to the New World. For the next several centuries objects made of wicker imported from Europe decorated American homes. 

Until the 1850s, furnishings were inexpensive and serviceable, therefore easily disregarded. Then through a changing cultural, economic, and social conditions, wicker became a status symbol for America's rising middle class.

Although the mass production of wicker began in America, the main materials used in its manufacture—cane and reed—came from rattan palms, which grew wild in Asia. In the early 1840s, Cyrus Wakefield, a shrewd young Yankee grocer, noticed huge quantities of rattan being discarded around the Boston docks after serving as packing material to protect cargo on clipper ships returning from Asia. 

Wakefield first used the pliable, shiny rattan to wrap around wooden chairs to make outdoor furniture. Then he began to split the outer bark of the rattan into strips called cane, to weave into seats and backs for indoor chairs and settees. Finally, he discovered that the porous substance under the cane could be made into reed to weave wicker with a more absorbent surface than rattan that would take paint and stain.

Discovering that chairs and tables could be made more cheaply from this strange material than importing finished pieces, he began making small pieces of furniture using this discarded rattan.

In 1873 he founded the Wakefield Rattan Company in Wakefield, Massachusetts. By the end of the decade, his firm accumulated sales of over $2 million. At its peak, his  company employed 1,000 workers in 30 buildings in Wakefield and another 800 in  Chicago.

Wakefield's successes encouraged Heywood and Brothers Company, wooden chair makers in Gardner, Massachusetts, to begin making wicker furniture in 1876. For the next 20 years, the two companies competed fiercely. They dominated the industry.

Both companies responded to economic prosperity following the Civil War which enabled middle class families to leave America’s dirty, crowded cities for clean, airy suburbs, prompting a demand for wicker furnishings. These light, airy pieces were ideal for the new gabled and turreted Queen Anne-style homes and for the verandas of resort hotels catering to the new vacationing middle classes.

Because it was easy to keep clean, wicker attracted those concerned about sanitation, and its lightness, adaptability and design potential, Victorian tastemakers loved it. Wicker not only satisfied those with good taste but did it at an affordable price. 

When the Aesthetic Movement swept America in the 1870s, stressing the uplifting moral and spiritual influence of artistic decors, tastemakers recommended the use of ornamental wicker in people’s homes. This emerging middle-class interest in aesthetically correct furniture encouraged Wakefield and other manufacturers to create increasingly ornate pieces that people associated with art and beauty. Fancy wicker enhanced the ostentatiously overdecorated Victorian parlors and expansive porches while proclaiming the taste of its owners. 

Curling, shaping and twisting pliable lengths of wetted reed into whimsical scrolls, spirals, and whirlygigs, skilled craftsmen fed the Victorian fever for more exotic wicker objects. They incorporated a variety of astronomical and botanical forms, flags, Oriental fans, shells, and ships into their elaborate designs. Two of the most unique pieces was the tete-a-tete, in which two people could sit side by side or the serpentine "Conversation Chair,"  in which a courting couple could sit facing each other.

Elegant tables were important to the decor of Victorian homes. With its intricate grid of legs and embellishments, fancy skirt and caned top, a square table would have added grace and utility to its owner's room.

The burgeoning demand for more elaborate forms reached its peak during the 1890s, when American wicker became more fanciful and ostentatious. A good example is the "Fancy Reception Chair,” featuring intricate tiny scrolls and frilly curlicues. Often designed as show pieces for elegant parlors rather than for actual use, these ornate chairs are fairly hard to find today and often sell for upwards of $1,000 in good condition.

By the turn of the 20th century, Victorian ornate design faded in favor of simplicity. Design reformers instead promoted the "Bar Harbor" style, simplified wicker furnishings with wide open, diagonal latticework that would fit plain, open interiors.

Just before World War I, the Arts and 'Crafts movement inspired American wicker   

manufacturers to create boxy, unornamented shapes ideal for the minimalist interiors of  newly-popular bungalow homes. Arts and Crafts leader Gustav Stickley produced a line  of square and-severe willow furniture reflecting his interest in geometric designs. By the   beginning of the Great Depression, wicker was all but dead in America.

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.

Wristwatches Worth Collecting

 

QUESTION: My dad loved old watches and over time he collected over four dozen. Most of them are wristwatches, from classic ones to special, novelty examples. He has since died, and his watch collection came to me. I’m not exactly sure what to do with it. Part of me wants to continue my father’s collection, but another part has no idea how to do that since I don’t have the passion for watches that he did. Can help?

ANSWER: Before you do anything with your dad’s watch collection, it’s important to learn what you have. Make a list of all the watches and systemically research each one to learn more them. Once you do that, you’ll be in a better position to deal with your collection.

The wristwatch has been around for nearly 150 years. For much of that time, they’ve represented some of the world’s most accurate timepieces. Today, the function of the wristwatch has been taken over by smartphones and fitness bands, but the beauty of those old watches remains and in many cases they’ve kept on ticking.

The wristwatch originated in 1868, when Patek & Philippe of Switzerland modified a tiny pocket watch for the Hungarian Countess Koscowicz. However, it took several years for Philippe, or any other watchmaker, to make anything other than the popular pocket watch—plus several more before any of them produced a wristwatch that could be priced reasonably enough for people to buy.

As the 19th century progressed, women's miniature pocket watches were often attached to a decorative bracelet or leather strap, to be worn on the wrist as a fashion accessory. In a 1891, Audemars Piguet of Switzerland created an 18mm minute repeater movement, one of the smallest of its kind.

By the 20th century, several other manufacturers introduced wristwatches, and while ladies bought them, men didn’t because they considered them to be effeminate.

But World War I changed all that. During the first decade of the 20th century, Robert Ingersoll designed a line of ladies pocket watches for the Waterbury Company. The “Midget” was both tiny and inexpensive, and the U.S. Armed Forces ordered thousands for use by their troops, requesting that the winding crown be moved from the 12 o'clock to the 3 o'clock position. After soldering a pair of wire loops at 12 and 6 o'clock, they attached the Midget to a band, creating the world's first inexpensive wristwatch.

Now Ingersoll also invented a luminous paint called Radiolite, a radium compound, which when applied to the watch's hands and numerals, allowed them to glow in the dark. Not only could soldiers now tell time in the dark, they also began to appreciate the convenience of a wristwatch over the traditional pocket watch. By the end of the war, the modified Midget had changed men’s perception of the wristwatch.

In 1920, only 25 percent of the watches exported by Switzerland were wristwatches; by 1934, the figure had risen to 65 percent.

Fashion and technology were also rapidly changing. Between 1915 and 1940, watch companies introduced thousands of unique styles for both men and women, each vying for their share of a burgeoning market. By the late 1920s, automatic self-winding and water-resistant models were in production, and by the late 1930s,shock-resistant movements were in the works.

The 1930s would also introduce the character watch. In 1933, the Ingersoll-Waterbury Company, under exclusive license from Walt Disney, produced character watches and clocks featuring Mickey Mouse. The watches retailed for $2.98. Macy’s Department Store in New York sold over 11,000 on the first day of their release. Not only was Ingersoll-Waterbury saved from the financial ruin of the Depression, after eight weeks of production, they added 2,700 employees to their 300-person work force. By 1935, more than 2.5 million Mickey Mouse watches had been sold.

The success of Ingersoll-Waterbury encouraged other watch companies to begin producing collectible character watches in the 1930s. Examples include Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Donald Duck and the Lone Ranger. Ironically, while World War I brought wristwatches to public favor, it would be World War II that would all but curb production, as watch factories reorganized for the war effort.

After World War II, people had a renewed interest in character watches, a trend which has continued to the present. Unlike watches made in the 19th century, character watches are relatively inexpensive, so more people can buy them, especially online. For example, a 1978 Registered Edition Bradley 50th Birthday Mickey Mouse watch can still be found for $75.The same holds true for many watches from the 1950s. A 1950s U.S. Time Zorro watch will cost around $125, and a 1951 Ingraham Dale Evans sells for about $75. There are exceptions, but even these aren’t completely out of reach. An example would be a Roy Rogers, mint in box, which sells for about $400.

While character watches may be fun to collect, there are some who prefer to collect premium vintage watches. Gruen watches are especially popular. What separates true antique watches is that all of them are mechanical—that means they need to be wound each day. It’s because they’re mechanical that many people shy away from them. Today, people live in a battery-operated world and they don’t want to have to remember to wind their watch.

What separates one vintage watch from another is the brand. Younger collectors tend to favor stainless steel watches over gold or two-tone and look for names like Omega, Breitling and Tag Heuer. The older crowd gravitates toward the traditional elegance and style of Rolex, Patek Phillippe, and Vacheron Constantin.

Unfortunately, the luxury wristwatch market has been overrun by fakers. While the Internet has opened the selection of watches to people all over the world, it has also opened the floodgates for every crook and con artist. Because these wa

tches cost so much, most buyers are looking for bargains. If the price seems too good to be true, then the watch is probably a fake. Like luxury cars, luxury watches hold their value. Being an antique just adds to it. 

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 Roaring Twenties" in the 2025 Spring 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.

Geometrics in Indian Mosaic

 

QUESTION: Recently, as I was browsing the tables at a local garage sale, I came across a unique box covered with tiny bits of stone in intricate geometric patterns. I asked the homeowner if they knew anything about it, but she said she bought it several years ago at another yard sale. I decided to buy the box but I can’t find anything about it. What can you tell me about this box?

ANSWER: Your box is an example of a Sadeli Mosaic, a type of decoration of repeating geometric patterns on a variety of boxes, card cases, and chess boards produced in India since the 16th century. Becoming popular in the 19th century, it’s a type of micro mosaic. Since Bombay (now Mumbai) became a center of making them, they became known as Bombay boxes.

Archaeologists believe the ancient art of Sadeli Mosaic first appeared in Shiraz in Persia by way of Sind to Bombay, a long time before Indian boxes appeared. The designs on early boxes look deceptively simple. They emerged from a culture which had mastered geometry and understood how to generate a pattern from a set number of points. The patterns are so harmoniously combined that their incredible complexity isn’t immediately apparent to the viewer.

While the technique may at first seem exquisitely complex, it’s relatively simple. Nevertheless, it required a great deal of skill and patience.

The first step in creating a Sadeli mosaic was to prepare thin rods by scraping lengths of ivory, bone or wood into the desired shape, usually triangular. Artisans then glued these long thin rods together with animal glue, then sliced them transversely to form a repeat pattern. To get variety and contrast, they used woods like ebony and rosewood, along with natural and green-stained bone and ivory. Often they mixed in circular shaped rods of silver, pewter or tin. Finally, they glued the slices onto the surface of a wooden box, often made of sandalwood. Craftsmen then scraped the surface of the slices to level slight variations. To achieve variations of patterns, they combined the materials in different ways.

Persian and Indian makers of this exquisite decorative technique displayed an understanding of the qualities of the different materials they used. They combined substances, which could expand and contract according to atmospheric conditions with others which were hard and unyielding. The result was a sharp definition of the lines and patterns which made up the whole design.

Beginning in the early part of the 18th century, Indian artisans made what came to be known as Anglo-Indian boxes for the English residents living in India, who eventually brought or sent them back to England. At the beginning of the 19th century, India began exporting these boxes commercially, although not in any significant numbers until the 1850s. People valued them so highly that manufacturers of biscuit tins copied the designs on them in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Anglo-Indian boxes fall into four groups: Rosewood or ebony boxes inlaid with ivory; sandalwood boxes veneered in ivory, tortoiseshell, horn, quills or a combination of these materials; sandalwood boxes covered with Sadeli mosaic; and carved boxes often combined with Sadeli mosaic.

The first two categories came from Vizagapatam in East India while the last two came from Bombay in West India.

English traders discovered the rich woods and intricate workmanship of Indian artisans, so colonial government officials began to recognize the work of the Indian artists and craftsmen as a source for satisfying the need for furniture and boxes, which would both serve to enhance English households in India. This gave rise to the cabinetmaking workshops in Vizagapatam between Calcutta and Madras.

Craftsmen made the first boxes to be decorated with Sadeli Mosaic of rosewood or ebony with ivory, incised to give further definition to the decoration, directly inlaid into the wood. The shape of the early boxes was either sloping at the front with a flatter section at the back, reminiscent of English writing slopes, or rectangular. Artisans inlaid the borders with stylized floral scrolls and the centers with a single floral motif following a circular or oval symmetrical or asymmetrical pattern. The edging was of ivory pinned with ivory pins, or a combination of ivory and wood. Both ornamental and protective, both helped protect the end grain against the weather.

The style of the ornamentation on the early boxes was formal yet flowing and robust, a perfect compliment to the strength and grain of the rosewoods. The boxes often had silver escutcheons and drop handles. Indian artisans made this type of box up to the 1750s.

They also made ivory inlaid boxes in more conventional English shapes, such as writing, document, and jewelry boxes later in the 18th and 19th centuries. The designs by this time had moved on to covering more of the box in an integrated pattern or with a simple edge decoration with a small central motif.

In the early boxes, which date from the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, there are large panels of mosaic covering the tops and sides. It took incredible skill to cover such large areas without any wavering of the pattern. To further enhance the symmetry of these boxes, artisans impeccably matched the corners and where the sides joined the bottom.

To meet the demand, additional Indian workshops began making Sadeli Mosaic boxes in the latter part of the 19th century. The accuracy of execution and the sharpness of design suffered, however, although boxes from this period are pretty and easier to find.

The majority of the boxes found in the antiques market today are from the early to mid 19th century. By the 1820s, Indian craftsmen covered few boxes completely in Sadeli Mosaic, using it  more sparingly combined with other materials, mainly ivory. Latter sandalwood boxes, veneered in ivory, had circles, diamonds or bands of mosaic inserted as further decoration. 

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 Roaring Twenties" in the 2025 Spring 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.

Ground to Perfection

 

QUESTION: I love a good cup of coffee and grind my own beans. Today’s coffee grinders are sleek and efficient, but antique coffee grinders had character. Who were the major manufacturers of antique coffee grinders? And when did coffee grinders first appear?

ANSWER: Unlike today, grocery stores in the 19th and early 20th centuries sold coffee only as beans that could be, freshly ground in the store. Originally, all general stores had some sort of coffee grinder sitting on the counter. The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, always sold its coffee as beans which could be custom ground according to the customer’s preference.

The Enterprise Manufacturing Company, founded by John Gulick Baker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1864 near Independence Hall, was one of the leading makers of both large and small coffee grinders. The company quickly grew to a huge operation producing everything from barn-door bolts to seven-foot-high, motorized coffee mills weighing almost 500 pounds. The firm also manufactured juicers, tobacco cutters, and Mrs. Potts sad irons, as well as cast iron banks. In 1876, the company received the Centennial Medal for their outstanding contributions to the American public.

General store owners used the Enterprise Model No. 12-1/2 coffee mill for grinding larger amounts of coffee. Manufactured between 1886 and 1898, it stood 42 inches high, had 25-inch diameter wheels and weighed about 140 pounds. It’s main components were of cast iron. Such mills became status symbols for those general store owners who could afford them.

While many of these larger coffee mills sported bright red or green paint, some had other decorations in the form of decals. True to Victorian style, many had gold painted details added to dress them up and give them a more deluxe appearance. Some of these mills also had elaborate flower motifs adorning the wheels to make them attractive for women shoppers.

In the 19th century, coffee grinders made to be used in the home ranged from box-type grinders designed to grind coffee from one-to-four servings to wall-mounted grinders, some of which could hold a pound or more of beans at a time.

Box grinders usually had brass bowls mounted on top of a hardwood or cast-iron box. The crank perforated the bottom of the bowl and would be turned to grind the beans into a drawer below. Not all box grinders were square, but finding a round one, especially in cast iron, can be a challenge for a collector.

In England, Kenrick & Sons was a major maker of box coffee grinders—the oval brass nameplate on the front of Kenrick box grinders makes them easy to identify. Imperial, Favorite, and None-Such were important U.S. brands. And in France, Peugeot Frères made metal and cast-iron box grinders with wooden handles.

The most collectible type of coffee grinder is the wall mounted variety made of cast iron. Some were brass, with clear glass hopper for beans on top, a big crank handle on the side, and a wooden drawer at the base to collect the ground coffee. The Arcade Manufacturing Company of Illinois made a wall-mounted grinder called The Crystal, named for its glass beans hopper and glass grounds cup.

But the Enterprise Manufacturing of Philadelphia made heavy-duty grinders for grocers, retailers, and wholesalers. While many of these wall or table-mounted machines had side crank handles, its largest grinders had handles that attached to flywheels. Some grinders had one wheel, others two.

The most ornate examples of Enterprise grinders from the late 19th and early 20th centuries had eagle finials atop urn-shaped hoppers and a pair of flywheels, all of which would be mounted on a waist-high, decorative cast-iron stand.

Mounting a coffee grinder firmly in place was important enough that even small box grinders had tabs on their bases so the grinder could be secured to a surface. People held Turkish style coffee grinders in their hands. Usually made of brass or enameled metal, these slender, cylindrical grinders often featured detailed engraved designs on their sides. Unlike box or grocery grinders, Turkish mills produced a fine grind, producing a dense, full-bodied coffee, today known as espresso, suited to what many considered an after-dinner beverage.

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 "Roman Arts and Culture" in the 2025 Winter 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.