Autumn List

Now that summer is losing its sweaty grip on us, I have been turning my thoughts to what to do this fall to occupy my mind. And body.

I realized recently that I have about twenty large boxes of pristine and achingly beautiful depression-era glassware lovingly stored upstairs that needs to be brought down, cleaned up, gloated over, and photographed. I have been wanting to do it for a while now, but it is rather a daunting task, so naturally I will need the assistance of my favorite strong male back.

My love of depression glass started about thirteen years ago (good god, has it been THAT long?) when my mother came for a visit and brought me a bag full of her usual garage sale finds she picked up while thinking of me. In the box were a large, perfect pink bowl and a small panelled pink drinking glass. I was transfixed. She said she thought they were old, and since I seemed to like ‘all that old shit’ she thought maybe I could incorporate these two pieces somewhere around the house for potpourri or something.

The next day I went to the library. Hey, we didn’t have the internets back then, okay? I found a few books on old glassware and brought them home to find out more about this glass. That night, I found out that my pink bowl was a piece of Old Colony pattern produced back in the early 1930’s by Anchor Hocking.

Amazing.

Then I learned that depression glass was inexpensive glassware sold at department stores and sometimes given away as premiums in different products of the time. It was mass produced mostly from soda glass and was first intended to replace the expensive, blown Art glass popular around the turn of the century. It was wildly popular and heavily used as dinnerware at home and in small restaurants and grills at the time. It was definitely not intended to last eighty years in the pristine shape that my new bowl was in.

Even more amazing.

That was it for me. I was hooked. I remember my first whirlwind tours of the area antique shops looking for pink glass. It was after one of my first proud purchases that I disappointedly learned about reproduction glassware made from old molds back in the ’70’s and ’80’s. The evolution of my collection has been fascinating and fun as hell. I have numerous reference books now and can tell most reproduction glass from original, but the real fun is seeing what is out there and talking to shop owners and other collectors.

At last count, I have over 200 pieces of gorgeous glass. Most of it must stay packed safely away because I have four graceless cats, and that is why I want to get it all photographed and put up on one of my other domains.

If I were to ever hit the lottery, I am going to have a ton of custom glass-front cabinets built in to my upstairs walls to house the collection safe and sound. That way I can gloat over it whenever the mood strikes me. And amazingly enough, my glasslust has never diminished, as did my love of crossstitching or collecting old Hammer horror movies.

There is nothing that can compare to standing in an antique shop, holding a piece of old pink glass up to the light to see if there are damaged spots or imperfections in it and finding none of either.

Except for maybe purchasing that same piece for my very own.

But nothing in my collection is as dear to me as that first bowl given me by my mother.