Possibilities | Glass Collectibles Guide

One auxiliary collection for a glass collection is one of stamps. Stamps depicting glass may be tied to the glass maker, like Louis Comfort Tiffany, or show examples of ancient glass. Collecting all the stamps with glass on them would be much like a continuing history lesson of glass making from its beginnings. And looking for these stamps makes for a very good geography lesson as well.

To find stamps with glass connections requires a stroll though the various volumes of the Scott’s Catalog of Stamps. Usually available at your local library, one need only page through the volumes, paper or electronic, looking for stamps with glass connections. Creating a list of the country and Scott’s numbers is the first step for making such a topical stamp collection. Note also the Scott’s price, and the price you pay for the stamps will have some relation to the Scott’s price, and not necessarily at full price.

Once you have some stamps on your want list, work with local or mail=order stamp dealers to purchase the stamps you want. You may find some that are too peripheral or too expensive for your tastes, but keep the information in case you change your mind later abou8t including those stamps. You can save the expensive ones as special presents or for work bonuses.

Once you start getting in your stamps, you will need a binder with appropriate pages for holding your stamps. Make sure to follow your dealer’s advice about acid and PET-free stamp pages and binder to protect your monetary investment. You can arrange the stamps in whatever way pleases you, but keep the information of which sets your own as well as the ones you are still looking for, for future reference.

Nearly every hobby shows up on stamps, both US and internationally, at some point or other, so look for the stamps that illustrate your special interests and start a topical stamp collection. Easy to store and arrange, stamps can provide hours of fun as you search for and purchase glass on stamps.

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Cameo glass is made by layering different colors of glass around each other, then wearing away the upper layers to revel the inner ones. Vessels with up to six layers of glass have been successfully made this way. The wearing away of the upper layers may be in part down using acid, but the final finishing is usually does by hand using hand tools or copper carving wheels. The process is time consuming, requires great skill, but results in beautiful three-dimensional decorations on the fluid shapes glass so readily takes.

La collection Daum (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy) © by dalbera

Daum of Nancy, France, was one of the most successful producers of cameo glass at the end of the Nineteenth Century. The natural motifs of Art Nouveau were especially suited to this form of glass. Daum still produces glass in this technique, as well as the crystal clear products the company is famous for.

Emile Galle (1846-1904) was another successful glass designer using the cameo glass technique.

La main aux algues et aux coquillages (Emile Gallé) © by dalbera

This work is rather unusual in it depicts the human hand. His works are found in museums and fine glass collections world-wide.

Cameo glass was first produced in the ancient world. The technique was lost and found several times, most recently in the mid-Nineteenth Century. John Northwood was able to reproduce the Portland Vase, from First Century Rome, and the flourishing of cameo glass is England followed. French glass designers followed suit, and there are many fine examples of turn-of-the-century cameo glass both in and out of museums.

More recently, while Daum still produces cameo glass, American glass makers have also taken up the challenge. Fenton makes a number of vases and lamps in cameo glass, and the Pilgrim Glass Company made some vases and bowls between the 1980′s and it closing in 2001. There is also some new cameo glass described as Bayel of France that seems to come from the Royal Champagne Crystal Work located in Bayel, Champagne, France. More about this production may be forthcoming.

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Glass on Stamps

Cameo Glass