Rescuing depression glass and keeping up with tech
- col-teri-stein
- November 15, 2024
- 797
We tend to take in strays at our house, but lately, we have been dealing with a different kind of stray. To be exact, we had a couple large boxes of unwanted depression and other decorative glassware that ended up in our garage.
I didn’t want to keep it, but I didn’t want to throw it in the trash either. I could donate the pieces. I already have enough depression glass of my own, and it’s taking up lots of space in the attic and the closet, although I have some pieces nicely displayed in my hutch.
Depression glass was manufactured between 1929 and 1939 during the Great Depression, obviously. The period began on Black Thursday, Oct. 24, 1929, when the stock market crashed. The Great Depression ended in 1941 during World War II.
I don’t remember how I first learned about depression glass or got interested in it, but I do remember scouring garage sales in the 1980s looking for the stuff. According to research, that is when a lot of the original depression glass owners were letting go of their collections, and it was widely found for sale. Joe was all in on helping me with my new hobby, and he was willing to stop at yard sales when he really didn’t want to.
The main colors used in the glass were pink, yellow, green, blue and crystal (clear). The colors are the most collectable now.
The glassware is thin, which made it cheaper to produce, and it was often given away free. Vendors would place a piece of the glassware inside of products like boxes of oatmeal to entice buyers.
What’s not to love about depression glass? It’s pretty, it’s got history but no one wants to collect it anymore. When I was enthusiastically collecting depression glass in the 1980s, I was thinking of financing my retirement and selling my collection for a fortune. Prices were going up and up, until they weren’t. Prices for most pieces now hover around what I paid for them in the 1980s.
The two patterns I collect are clear glass, which is not the most sought-after. In fact, one pattern, Sandwich, is thought to be no longer collectible because so many reproductions were made over the years and from the original molds. The other pattern I collect is the Iris and Herringbone. I think all my Iris pieces are legitimate, but some of those were reproduced in 1950 and 1970.
Why is everything so hard? You can’t even collect glassware without problems. If you like it though, you just have to keep it.
Anyway, back to the two boxes full of mystery items. I took photos of the items and learned to use Google image search, and before you know it, photos of similar pieces popped up with the name and sometimes prices others were selling them for.
Of course, I couldn’t resist keeping some of the items, especially the colored pieces. Now I have a light-green Lorain oval bowl made by Indiana Glass and a yellow cup that just came up as depression glass and has a chip on the rim. I still need to do some more research.
Then I found some small, divided dishes that looked like mini relish trays. I’m not sure what they are either, but I’m going to keep them. I’ve never seen dishes like that before. Maybe I’ll be able to identify them some day.
Then one piece I was sure I was not going to keep came up as a Fire King casserole, and the design was patented on May 27, 1919. That is less than two weeks before my grandma was born, so now I have to keep that. It reminds me of my grandma. It stays.
Maybe taking in stray depression glass so it doesn’t get tossed is not a good thing. I added three smaller boxes to my collection that does not need to grow. So if you have depression glass you want to rid yourself of, don’t give it to me.
Well, maybe I’ll just have a tiny look.