Candlelit fairy lights (AKA fairy lamps) were popular in the 19th century before access to gas and electrical lighting. George Miller Clarke invented fairy lights in England in 1844, just about the dawn of the Victorian era. These lights consisted of a base, into which a candle could be inserted, and a chimney or shade. They would provide light when placed at intervals in hallways or rooms.

Their appearance differed from kerosene lamps in that fairy lamps were more colorful and decorative but also smaller; typical kerosene lanterns were strictly functional, consisting primarily of a tall shade and oil reservoir made of clear glass.

After Clarke introduced the form, several other Victorian companies produced fairy lights, being careful not to infringe on Clarke’s designs. These included Pairpoint, Baccarat, Hobbs Brockunier, Central Glass, and Daum, among others (www.fairylampclub.com). Later producers included Indiana Glass, Westmoreland, and Fenton.

Even though it didn’t start making them until the 1950s, fairy lights made by Fenton Art Glass Co. have become popular with modern collectors. The company issued fairy lights to celebrate seasons from winter to spring and holidays from Easter to Halloween to Christmas to … well, you name it. Fenton was especially interested in celebrating Christmas as a Christian holiday, but it was also careful to make the decoration of most of its winter-themed lights generic so that they can be enjoyed by those of other faiths (or no faith affiliation at all). Let’s not forget, for example, that December also brings us Hannukah, the Jewish “festival of lights.”

This article focuses on fairy lights, of whatever maker, that were made to celebrate winter and its holidays, a time when these twinkling lights are especially welcome in the dark nights – and often sunless days – of the season. But first, some information about safe usage.

Safety First

The oldest fairy lights generally consisted of one solid piece of glass with a tall stem and a wide skirt. (It’s worth noting here that the first ones Fenton made had a candle access hole that was too narrow to accommodate a votive candle, the size of choice for fairy lights. The company subsequently widened their one-piece lamps just enough to accommodate a votive.) Other fairy lights come in several shapes and numbers of separate parts. Most consist of the base with a separately molded top (two-piece), others of the base, globe, and a separate candle base between them (three piece).

Glassmakers, including but not limited to Fenton, that made fairy lights for distributor LG Wright even made four-piece forms, in which the fourth piece was a clear glass cylinder to hold the candle that was inserted into the middle, recessed holder found in the three-piece models. Consequently, these lamps look like three-piece models when viewed from the outside.

The insert that was this fourth piece may have been Wright’s effort to protect the outer globe from flame damage, it having been discovered that votive lights can generate sufficient internal heat to crack the chimney part of the lamp. Consequently, today’s collectors of all fairy light forms prefer to use shorter tea lights that generate far less heat – or, better still, LED-battery votives that generate no heat at all.

Pilgrim forms made of cloth, straw, or ceramics are useful as decorations for Thanksgiving but not so much for the rest of the year. Broadening our focus, there are many Thanksgiving-appropriate collectible items, including some that can be used year-round and not just for that particular holiday.

When I think of Thanksgiving, my first thoughts don’t go to the pilgrims but to the Native Americans who welcomed them. There are many Native American arts, antique and newer, that are especially apt for Thanksgiving and beyond. Think, for instance, of indigenous baskets that can be used to display direct-from-the-garden squash, potatoes, carrots, and gourds. Since many families break out the simple, non-figural nutcracker for this holiday, smaller examples of native basketry can be used to display the nuts in shells (And among the more decorative – but not necessarily edible – nuts for the season, we also have the humble acorn!).

Old Thanksgiving postcards and greeting cards can also be used to decorate a table centerpiece or the walls of the dining room in celebration of the November holiday.

Turkeys are ubiquitous at this time of year – and not just the ones with feathers! Serving pieces and planters in turkey form have been made of pottery and other ceramics, metal, and glass. Glass covered turkeys can be found in which the top lifts away; these have been made by LE Smith and Mosser Glass. Turkey displays have been made of every conceivable raw material, from pine cones to cloth to yarn. You can even find “stuffed” turkey doorstops.

Pumpkins are a popular Thanksgiving collectible, real ones right from the garden or decorative examples, old and new, made of glass, stuffed cloth, or other material. Non-edible ears of corn made of ceramics and three-ear gatherings of natural Indian corn (with multi-colored kernels), usually made for display rather than eating, make great door decorations.

I’m especially fond of decor-ating with gourds, non-edible as they may be, because they grow in so many colorful shapes and forms. And they last a long time as well, so you can get them at harvest at the end of summer and still have them for decorating at Thanksgiving and for weeks afterward.
Small bundles of natural wheat can also be used as harvest décor, but wheat shocks have also been rendered in non-edible forms. Among these are the wheat vases first made in Czechoslovakia and later popularized by Fenton Art Glass, in which the vase flares at the top and is surrounded by glass roping and lobes sculpted on the body of the vase to simulate the shocks of wheat.

Custard glass is creamy ivory or pale-yellow pressed glass that was popular in the late 19th and very early 20th centuries. It was used in tableware made by some English and Czech/Bohemian companies but is generally found here in the U.S. made by American companies, including Dithridge, Northwood, Heisey, Jefferson Glass, and Fenton. Custard glass was made with elements including uranium and sulfur and will glow under blacklight. The oldest glass was unmarked and identified primarily by pattern though one will occasionally find a piece with the maker mark on the base.

The glass itself usually had molded designs of florals and borders that were painted. The painting has had variable longevity. The more a set was used, the more susceptible the paint would be to wear. In some cases, the paint has deteriorated to such an extent that it is better to remove it so that the underlying glass form can show to its best advantage.

The color accent on the oldest custard glass is a brown or green wash such as seen in Northwood and Fenton, and this has usually survived to better advantage than the more multi-colored painted varieties that came along just a bit later. Sometimes decoration on painted glass was done just in enameled gold paint.

One of the painted custard glass patterns that survives in best condition was Northwood’s Chrysanthemum Sprig. It was made in a variety of tableware and serving forms, of which I’ve been able to identify the following (though more forms may have been produced): pitcher and glasses, sugar and creamer, spooner, toothpick, round covered butter, jelly compote, and berry bowl set. The spooner and sugar are essentially the same size and shape, but the sugar bowl will have a rim on the inside to accommodate its fancy lid. Chrysanthemum Sprig was also made by Northwood in a blue glass, likewise painted, primarily in gold with green painting in the border whereas the custard versions also included pink accents in the borders.

Online prices for Chrysanthemum Sprig are mostly in the $50-$75 price range with a few going higher. Complete or near-complete sets of table centerpiece pieces will sell for more. Northwood also made custard glass in other patterns, including Argonaut, Fan and Feather and Grapes and Leaves.
It should be noted that the Chrysanthemum Sprig pattern has been imitated in at least the toothpick form. Northwood examples will have tops that are flared to the same diameter as the base. The top of the late-20th century copy by Summit Glass is pulled in narrower than the base.

Most of the lampshades made before the late 19th century were glass globes for oil lamps. Sometimes these would be produced in colored glass for both the lamp base and the shade. But most shades were narrow lantern-style and made of clear glass.

The first electric light bulbs were invented in the last two decades of the 19th century; Thomas Edison’s Edison Electric Life Co. didn’t develop a commercially available bulb until 1880. By 1885, 300,000 electric lamps were estimated to have been sold in the USA although they didn’t become widely used until the first decade or so of the 20th century (www.historyoflamps.com/lamp-history/history-of-electric-lamps).

The earliest lampshades were made of metal or glass. In the late Victorian era, they became more elaborate and decorative, using cloth materials, beads, lace, and fringe (www.premierlampshades.co.uk/blog/history-of-lampshades).

Today’s commercially available glass lampshades are so basic in design and color (usually white) that they’re made to be purely functional as lighting. Older glass shades strove for a more aesthetic appeal. Perhaps the most famous early examples were produced by Louis Comfort Tiffany’s company.

Tiffany’s stained-glass effects were so colorful that they were spectacular when lit from within. The earliest examples were made in 1895 and the latest in the 1920s, making them all antiques today.

Tiffany-style lamps have been made by other manufacturers that could produce them cheaply enough that more than the upper class of society could afford the Tiffany lamp look. Original, genuine Tiffany lamps are considered the ultimate prize in old electric lamps and are priced on the secondary market accordingly, from three figures to over $1,000,000 in some cases! Authentic Tiffany lamps will have TIFFANY STUDIOS NEW YORK in capital letters stamped into the metal rim of the shade or on the glass shade itself. The use of lowercase letters would mean the lamp is not authentic Tiffany. For more information on telling real Tiffany lamps from fakes, check out Kovel’s Antique Trader article on the topic (https://www.antiquetrader.com/antiques/tiffany-lamps-how-to-tell-real-from-fake).

Of course, Tiffany wasn’t the only producer of electric lamps. Among other interesting effects were reverse-painted glass lampshades, painted on the inside of the shade rather than outside (Think about what it would have been like to try to paint the rounded inside of a shade even before the shade was installed on a lamp!).

Reverse-painted lamps were made by several companies in the early 1900s such as Pittsburgh Lamp Co., Handel, and Phoenix Glass (www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/2002/03/10/shedding-light-on-reverse-painted/50366817007).

Although lighting was not its only product, the Bradley & Hubbard Manufacturing Co. also made lamps with colorful glass shades. These were not as elaborate in color or style as those made by Tiffany, but they were works of art in their own terms. B & H lamps are characterized by fancy metal frames holding the glass in the shade. Bradley & Hubbard lamps can be found in both electrified and oil lamp form and may have a telescoping base, a feature invented by that company.

Whether we’re collectors or dealers, most of us will come across items for possible acquisition that we haven’t seen before and about which we may know little or nothing beyond a gut intuition that it’s something worth having. If we’re wise, we’ll try to find out what it is before we try to sell it.
Pricing it right and moving it out may well depend on what we can tell potential buyers about it. This, of course, begs the question of where to look for information. Our first instinct nowadays is to look for information on the Internet, AKA “the Web.”

They don’t call it the Web for nothing

Just as a spider spins its web the better to catch its unwary prey, so, too, can the unwary researcher be trapped by widespread misinformation on the Web. Especially when it comes to antiques and collectibles, websites often cannibalize from other websites that have in turn plagiarized from someone else. It would be fairly easy for an unwary dealer to get trapped in that web of hearsay and conjecture passed off as solid information – especially when what it weaves is a compelling fantasy about the value of an item. Internet auction descriptions are famous for this kind of cannibalism.

One problem with the website as an information source is that the author is often not identified. Consequently, there’s no way to judge the qualifications or credentials of whoever wrote the information except by inference from the reputation and reliability of whomever or whatever business or organization owns the website itself.

A helpful way of vetting for items you’re trying to identify is to do an image search on Google. There’s an “image” search option right there in the upper right corner of the opening search page. Clicking on any of the loaded images will bring up a link to the page of origin. Images from such a search are linked to a variety of sites, including but not limited to eBay. Checking out a few of these can usually lead to a set of rudimentary and sometimes conflicting facts that can then be used to filter further web search or lead one to look for print resources for more reliable information.

Print resources less tangled than the Web

We’re in an era where people think everything worth knowing can be found online. But books on antiques and collectibles by authors who are experts in their field are usually a better bet for reliability (some more than others). Unfortunately, many collector books went out of style and out of print as the Web took up more and more of the information space.

Even when books are out of print, you can often find copies in antique malls. Generally, books on specific topics are a better buy for information than the many generic antiques and collectibles guides that tried to touch on everything without covering much of anything. Most authors specialize in specific types of antiques and collectibles. Some (though not all) of the most reliable authors by collecting type include James Measell or Kenneth and Margaret Whitymer (glass), Gene Florence (American pottery), William A. Turnbaugh (Native American basketry), Henry Kauffman or David G. Smith (cast and wrought ironware such as Griswold and Wagner), and Nancy Schiffer or Sandra Andacht (Asian antiques). Books on maker marks are also indispensable, including (as just a couple of examples) the two books on pottery and porcelain marks by Ralph and Terry Kovel and Louis Lehner’s encyclopedia-sized book U.S. Marks on Pottery, Porcelain, and Clay.

Whatever your collecting passion, there’s probably a book about it. Note that the least reliable information in books is the price quote. Some of these books were published in the 1980s and ‘90s, and that doesn’t mean the quoted prices hold today. For collectors and dealers alike, there’s no substitute for reliable research, so do your homework!