Wonderful Days Of Carnival Glassware

Louis Comfort Tiffany and Favrile glass are with whom the passion for carnival glass had its start. Later Steuben Glass Company was founded by Fredrick Carter and he began making Aurene glass. The glassware by Tiffany and Steuben was hand blown along with some metallic oxides which were added carefully with the hot glass. Then the next step was spraying on to the surface while being heated up. The Tiffany and Steuben glassware were the ones preferred by the upper class people for the beautiful appearance and the high price.

Later on the scene came Felton Glass Company which started to produce its own line of iridescent glassware and other companies followed them. The carnival glassware was common among the poorer class of people as it was cheap and easily available. It was named so as this glassware was given away in carnivals.

Wonderful days of Carnival glassware

The majority of this glassware was made in America between the years of 1908 and 1918. Later the manufacturing on these units slowed down and by mid-century the carnival glassware started to come from Europe instead. When collectors started to seek out the glass in the latter part of the twentieth century, the manufacturers of America started producing these again just for the collectors of glassware.

Carnival glassware is considered as the cheaply available glassware and is very thick pressed glass that comes in different patterns and colors. The hot glass is sprayed with metallic oxides to produce the characteristic sheen which is present in this glassware. The glass is made iridescent by the light interference patterns produced by the metallic oxides.

Glassware collection

If you are wanting to learn more about collecting this type of glassware, it might be a good idea to join a collectors group as there are several enthusiastic and energetic carnival glassware collectors. Even though many companies manufactured this glassware, the Northwood Company is considered as the most important which is marked with an underscored N inside of a circle. Most of the collectors prefer Northwood glass as it has a symbol which is identified by all.

Many of the collectors concentrate on a particular pattern or color. There are three categories into which the colors fall, namely, dark, marigold and pastel. The least common are the pastels and the more common is the marigold color.

Collector clubs prove to be very useful in the sense that identifying the value of single glassware is very difficult. There are several factors upon which the value greatly depends which are the age, color, who made it, the condition of the piece and also the rarity. Some of them are even worth thousand dollars. Collecting Carnival glass is a fun and exciting hobby and it might even earn you a nice sum of money.