2019.07.16 Tuesday Stretch
Cal here. Happy Stretch Tuesday, I hope you have been lucky in all the recent auctions that have been going on. There has been quite a selection of carnival and stretch glass offered for sale. I was very lucky in the Bob Smith tumbler auction and came away with about 20 tumblers that are really stretch glass and are going to fit nicely into my collection. I don’t have the tumblers yet (need to make a run to Wroda’s NY facility to get them plus other purchases) so I cannot provide photos tonight, but you saw them in person or on-line before the auction. Suffice it to say that I was the successful bidder on most of the Fenton marigold wheel etched tumblers. In some cases, the one from his collection makes a full set of 6 for me and that is very lucky for me. I also added 2 Imperial Chesterfield Green Ice tumblers to my growing set; a couple more auctions and I should have a full set of 6 tumblers plus a pitcher. And one more Imperial Chesterfield Red tumbler, albeit with a chip on the base.
I will share a story from my early days of collecting stretch glass which has a strange lucky twist to it – actually three lucky twists. This was in the days of The Antique Trader when we bought glass sight unseen from strangers over the phone. They hoped our checks would clear and we hoped we would get the glass we paid for and that it would at least vaguely resemble what had been advertised.
One day I spotted a red or ruby cupped stretch glass bowl for sale and called in hopes of getting it, which I did. That was lucky #1. I sent my check, the seller sent the bowl and when I opened the package I could not have been more disappointed. I was a newbie and had not learned that most of Fenton’s ruby stretch glass bowls would not be iridized on the outside, so I looked at this bowl and thought, oh, they forgot to iridize the outside of it. Then I noticed that someone had put some cuttings on the exterior which were not particularly attractive. Again, being a newbie, I had never seen a piece of stretch glass with cutting on it. My first thought was to send it back as a defective bowl, but returning glass was more trouble than buying it, so I (luckily) put it in the back of a cabinet and sort of forgot about it. That was lucky #2.
Fast forward a few years and I am going to The Stretch Glass Society convention. We were always encouraged to bring pieces of stretch glass for ID, so I thought, I’ll take that bowl and see what it is. Much to my amazement, when I unpacked it, there was a lot of excitement about it. Finally, someone explained that I had a Fenton ruby cut ovals bowl – not a common thing to find. Another stretch glass enthusiast was there with a pair of Fenton ruby cut ovals candleholders. She asked if she could borrow my bowl to display with her candleholders and I ready agreed. Many years later I was lucky enough to purchase a pair of Fenton ruby cut ovals candleholders from Billy and Mrs. Richards (that is lucky #3) so today I have a complete set.
I would say that luck is always involved when it comes to finding and acquiring anything in Fenton’s cut ovals. Almost all of the bowls and candleholders are at least hard-to-find. Most are very hard-to-find. Over the years I’ve managed to acquire 10” and 8 1/2” candleholders in most of the colors and bowls in Celeste Blue, Topaz and Grecian Gold, in addition to the Ruby one.
I’m still looking for single topaz and Persian Pearl 8 1/2” candleholders and a number of the bowls (Fenton made several shapes and sizes of bowls, some smaller ones for the 8 1/2” candleholders and then some larger ones for the 10” candleholders). I’m hoping I’ll get lucky and at least find the topaz and persian pearl candleholders I need to complete those two sets. Finding more bowls will require extraordinary luck, I suspect, but then again, if we can be lucky, why not be extraordinarily lucky?
Our annual convention is coming up on July 24-26, 2019, in Marietta, OH. I hope you will be lucky enough to be able to join us and see all the stretch glass we are bringing together in our displays of bedroom and bath items as well as other themes. Maybe you will be lucky and be the winning bidder on one or more items in the Burns Auction of stretch, carnival and Fenton glass. Please join us for a fun 3 days of admiring, learning about, buying and selling stretch glass and networking with lots of stretch glass enthusiasts.