Daisy Dear and Triplets: Two Unheralded Diamond Patterns

By Dr. Larry Keig

It’s unlikely that many collectors are out there actively looking for pieces in Daisy Dear and Triplets.  Yet the two patterns (especially Daisy Dear) come in a surprisingly wide range of colors and in some unusual shapes.

While the two patterns are not difficult to tell apart, they are often incorrectly identified in auction brochures, on eBay, and at antique shows and shops.  The identifying motifs of both are found on the exterior.  Neither has a patterned interior.  The simplest way to distinguish between them is to count the number of floral sprays.  Daisy Dear has four; Triplets, three.

There are other differences as well.  Daisy Dear’s flowers, each with five petals, are large in relation to the leaves.  Each of the four flowers has two small, fluffy leaves.  The underside of the base has a single flower with five bulbous, or balloon-like, petals.  The pattern is known in four shapes, all crafted from the same mold-plunger combination – an easily-found marigold ruffled bowl, a seldom-seen jack-in-the-pulpit whimsey, an even less-often-found tri-cornered whimsey bowl, and an attractive bride’s basket (bowl set into metal frame).

The ruffled bowls, which range from seven to eight inches in diameter (the deeper smaller than the shallower), are known in several colors: marigold, amethyst, peach opal, and aqua/sapphire with marigold overlay.  The JIPs have been reported in marigold and amethyst, the tri-cornered in peach opal, and the rare bride’s basket in marigold and peach opal.

The peach opal pieces are likely very early Diamond products.  The marigold were almost certainly made for a long period of time, perhaps well into the 1920s, the amethyst during the teens, and the aqua/sapphire, in the After Glow years of the late ‘20s.  If a white was made, as has been suggested, it was probably a product of the early 1920s.

Triplets’ flowers, each with six petals, are small compared to the leaves.  Each of the three flowers is separated by two big, beefy leaves.  The lower side of the base has a single flower with six elongated, pointed petals.  The pattern has been reported in two bowl shapes – broadly ruffled (about eight inches in diameter) and deeply ruffled (between six-and-one half and seven inches across).  The latter have sometimes been referred to as hats.  Triplets has been reported in three colors – marigold, amethyst, and peach opalescent.  (I purposely chose the term “reported” because I’m not certain that these actually exist in amethyst and peach opal as they may, instead, have been misidentified Daisy Dear.)

Common as marigold Daisy Dear and Triplets bowls are, the other colors and the infrequently found shapes are worth looking for.