Slag Glass

One of my favorite decorative glass types is slag glass, made in a number of different colors by a number of 19th- to 20th-century American glassmakers (including Northwood, Imperial, Westmoreland, Akro Agate, and Fenton) and still made by surviving glass companies of the 21st century, such as Boyd, Summit, and Mosser. Among the earliest U.S. producers of slag glass, beginning in the 1860s, were Atterbury & Co. and Challinor, Taylor & Co. England also had a few late 19th-century slag glassmakers, including Sowerby, Greener, and Davidson. The Greener company called its green slag glass “Malachite” after the dark green striated mineral of the same name.

According to the online Glass Encyclopedia (glassencyclopedia.com), slag glass is most commonly found in purple and less often in blue, green, and brown (AKA caramel). This may depend on the section of the country, however, as I see more of the caramel slag where I am in northern New England than I do any of the other colors.

The Corning Museum of Glass (libanswers.cmog.org/faq/143759) has a pretty good theory about the origins of slag glass; it may have been a kind of “end of day” glass in which individual workers were allowed to experiment with leftover colored glass batches to make items of their own. If that was the case, it didn’t take company brass long to see the market potential in producing deliberate recipes of slag glass.

I recently discovered, in an estate sale buy, that Westmoreland, in addition to making slag glass with milk glass, also mixed colored glass with a creamier off-white usually called almond. For example, at a recent local estate sale where I live in Vermont, I purchased a large, perfect-condition hen on nest in which the alternating complement of the caramel is a cream-colored glass, probably almond. Westmoreland often made items in the almond color alone, which is a very light tan color, but in the items in which the lighter non-white color is mixed with caramel, it takes on a deeper, almost golden color.

Imperial’s caramel-colored slag glass

One of the most prolific makers of slag glass in various colors was Imperial, which made it in purple, green, brown (caramel), and red. My parents had a collection of Imperial’s caramel-colored slag glass that I was only too happy to help them collect over the years as it made great presents from me for special occasions. A crucial information resource on Imperial slag is Volume II of the three-volume book set on Imperial Glass, titled Imperial Glass Encyclopedia by James Measell, an unparalleled expert in many types of collectible glass.

In the 1990s, Fenton had production trouble with a cobalt slag glass it called “Almost Heaven,” in which the blue would not fuse well with the milk glass and usually broke apart in the kiln; those items that made it out were sold in the Fenton Gift Shop.

Fire King

I caught the Fire King bug from my parents, who had one of the largest Jadeite (light green) Fire King collections I’ve ever seen, including rare pieces such as egg cups. That set has come down to my sister and is still center stage in family gatherings. When I started collecting Fire King myself, I decided to concentrate on other options in its line. I now have small sets of Fire King in basic plates, mugs, and bowls in three colors: pink, ivory, and turquoise. I also found a complete set of four nested serving bowls in ivory, which I use often, while my sister has a full set in Jadeite.

These lines were called Fire King because the glass is oven safe. Still, I try to avoid putting any of my Fire King pieces in the oven, though I find the mugs and plates especially convenient for microwave heating of cups of coffee and leftover foods.

Perhaps the best known of the Fire King lines is Jadeite, originally made in two different forms for homeware and for restaurant use. The Jadeite color is a deep pastel green color that went well with the kitchen décor of the 1940s and ‘50s. A restaurant version has thicker glass. In the 1990s, the original Fire King Jadeite was re-popularized when Martha Stewart came out with a similar jadeite line, today made by Mosser Glass in Ohio. Suddenly, prices on the original Anchor Hocking jadeite went through the roof: $25 for a mug or a cereal bowl when, just a year earlier, you could find plenty of it on the secondary market for $5 or less per item.

Prices also tend to be high on at least some other Fire King colors, and while prices have moderated somewhat, there is also much less of this glass around today. The least expensive Fire King on the secondary market tends to be the white and iridized peach items. Among my sets, the easiest to find, at least in isolated items, is ivory (sometimes called Clam Broth), with turquoise a bit harder to find, and pink hardest of all (Fire King was actually made in two versions of pink, one with the color flashed over white and the other with the pink actually in the glass itself, which I much prefer but which is very difficult to find). The items that appear most often on the secondary market are mugs and bowls; plates are much harder to find.

Peggy Whiteneck is a writer, collector, and dealer living in East Randolph, VT. If you would like to suggest a subject that she can address in her column, email her at  allwritealready2000@gmail.com. ​

Online auctions

As COVID-19 continues to rock our regular world, adaptive changes are becoming more common – including in the world of antiques and collectibles. Online auctions can compensate for the loss of sales opportunities on the ground, whether that loss is due to closure (temporary or otherwise) of live venues or the loss of customers who are choosing to stay home rather than risk infection. Here, for example, is a list of some of the Facebook groups offering auctions and straight sales:

• Antiques and Collectibles for Sale (482,000 members)
• Antiques and Collectibles for Sale or Wanted (31,000 members)
• Fenton Art Glass (several sales groups with several thousands of members)
• Mid-Century Modern Furniture for Sale (25,000 members)
• Vintage Clothing and Accessories (24,000 members)
• Antique and Vintage Silver for Sale (4,700 members)
• Vintage Clothing and Accessories (24,100 members)
• The Vintage Marketplace (34,400 members)
• Cast Iron Cookware Buy-Sell-Trade (29,000 members)
• Buy and Sell Vintage Toys (15,600 members)
• Vintage Sterling Silver Gems (Buy, Sell, and Trades) (6,700 members)

Taking advantage of these opportunities can be both fun and frustrating. Here are some of the things to watch for.

1. 1. Reputation of the Seller. When dealing with mailed sales from any of these groups, you’ll want to be sure you can trust the seller to deliver your purchased item as described and as mailed to arrive in one piece. I’m a member of two of the Fenton Facebook groups, but of the hundreds of sellers in these groups, there are three that I know I can trust to pack items safely for mailing. Online interest groups often have heart-rending posts from buyers about items that arrived unsafely packaged and in smithereens. For eBay sellers, there is also a system for buyers to rate a seller, and the reputation is worth paying attention to before buying.

    

   2.  Accurate Item Description. Just as with dealers in antiques and collectibles on the ground, there is a range of seller expertise on any given item from professional to rank amateur. And just as with live sales, there are varying levels of seller interest in describing their items accurately. Applying maker names to items that aren’t is a common problem, so buyers need to be on their guard.

Peggy Whiteneck is a writer, collector, and dealer living in East Randolph, VT. If you would like to suggest a subject that she can address in her column, email her at  allwritealready2000@gmail.com. ​

Three books in print

Currently, I have three books in print, one on Lladró Spanish porcelain and two on Fenton Art Glass.

Publishers were keenly interested in my first Lladró book proposal because Lladró was very popular among collectors in the 1990s and early 2000s. I went with Krause Publications, then one of the big names in publishing on antiques and collectibles (It later became F&W Publications before going bankrupt and being bought out by Penguin Random House in 2001).

I was limited in what I could write, by that publisher’s infatuation with the “price guide” format in its books and by the Lladró company’s initial resistance to having my book include any of its brands other than the core collection. Not until my current book, brought out by Schiffer Publishing in December 2019, The Lladró Guide; A Collector’s Reference to Retired Porcelain Figurines in Lladró Brands, could I write the book I wanted.

The first publisher, in 2012, for my two Fenton Art Glass books (one on animal, bird, and insect figurines and the other on fairy lights) was Old Line Publishing, which later went out of business. In 2020, I was contacted out of the blue by Lemur Press, which was interested in reissuing these books. That relationship has been both rewarding and challenging, as this start-up publisher could not print revised editions but only reproduce the originals under its own imprint. While I had trouble promoting the books in their original publication back in 2012, sales of the Lemur printings with the same content have been brisk as the collecting market in Fenton glass has heated up.

What’s involved in publishing

Getting a book published in antiques and collectibles poses many challenges, not the least of which is the contraction (fewer publishers) in the publishing field. Here’s what I learned about the steps in the process.

Finding a publisher. How broad is the interest in the field you want to write about? What kind of/how broad of a reputation does the writer have among other collectors? How strong is the publisher’s business? That is, is it a startup, or does it have a reputation based on many years in business?

Reviewing the contract. What percentage of the total cost of book sales is reserved to the author? (10% is about standard for this). Most publishers will be open to negotiating some aspects of the contract. For example, who retains the rights to the work? As a writer who wants to be published, I nevertheless have a nonnegotiable bottom line: I avoid contracts that do not leave with me, as the author, the basic rights to the work.

Peggy Whiteneck is a writer, collector, and dealer living in East Randolph, VT. If you would like to suggest a subject that she can address in her column, email her at  allwritealready2000@gmail.com. ​