Archive for September, 2009

  • Glass Oddities

    So, is there anything that cannot be made of glass? I don’t think so. Here are some of the stranger things I have heard of in looking for glass collectibles. Canes: glass masters, at the end of the day, used to take leftover glass and make a cane. Obviously not meant to be leaned on, these show [...]

  • Swankyswigs

    Well, today I learned about Swankyswigs. These are the small glasses Kraft used to package their cheese spreads in.  Remember? There were cartoon characters or something else painted on the outside, under the Kraft label. After all the good stuff (?) was gone, the glass remained to drink juice or milk from. Kraft used these glasses from the [...]

  • Glass Blowing and Molding

    Glass blowing has been a skilled craft for over two thousand years. The ingredients of sand, soda ash, lime and colorants are mixed together in a furnace crucible and heated to 2400° Fahrenheit, at which temperature the ingredients melt together and any bubbles within the batch escapes.  After the temperature is reduced to 2000° Fahrenheit, a [...]

  • Crystal Candle Holders

    There are many crystal candle holders available new and used. Like candle holders made of other materials, glass candle holders are made to hold one of three kinds of candles: one or more tapers, a pillar candle or a votive/tea light candle. In a few cases, you may find a candle holder that does double duty, holding [...]

  • Glass Barware

    The bar is one of the best places to find glass collectibles, whether at home or in public. There are different shapes of glasses for different type of wines: port, red wine, sherry, white wine, champagne, cordial or liqueur, hock, and the brandy snifter. The wine may be in a decanter, and there are decanter and glass [...]

  • Crystal Clocks

    Crystal clocks are glass bodies into which canned clocks are placed. Canned clocks are a modern invention that puts all the moving parts in an enclosed space behind the clock face. Therefore the glass form needs only a hole the right size into which to slide the canned clock. The clock can small or large, and the glass [...]

  • Glass in the Bath

    We are no longer encouraged to use glass containers in the bathroom due to the possibilities of breakage and glass shards if dropped in the sink or bathtub. For that reason current bath accessories are made from plastic is some form. But in the past glass was used for drinking glasses and cups, soap dishes, toothbrush [...]

  • Crystal Vases

    The ubiquity of glass and crystal vases means they are practically invisible. Yet there are so many colors and shapes that this is a good field for collecting. The short ones may be 3 inches tall, the tall ones 18 inches or more. They may hold one flower or two dozen. The mouth may be narrow or flaring. The vase [...]

  • Glass Color

    The color of glass depends on the mineral or metallic oxides added to the glass batch. These metallic oxides include tin, silver, copper, vanadium, chromium, manganese, cobalt and iron. Soda-lime glass has an intrinsic greenish color not visible if the glass is thin. A real green, like in wine bottles, is created by adding chromium oxide. Green [...]