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Heavy Iris

by Barb Chamberlain

The Dugan Glass Company produced the Heavy Iris pattern in carnival glass. However, they made very few shapes in this beautiful blow-molded pattern—water sets and a whimsey hat shape. It’s unfortunate that so few shapes were made because, as you see, it is a beautifully designed pattern.

A Marigold Heavy Iris set is shown above.  This purple set, courtesy of Seeck Auctions exhibits great iridescent color.

Water sets are only found in marigold, purple, and white. Although marigold is probably found most often, it is not found on a regular basis. White and purple (and shades in the purple family) are found much less frequently. Dugan, as you know, was famous for producing the peach opal color. There is one pitcher and tumbler known in peach opal in the Heavy Iris pattern.

The only known peach opal pitcher appears above. You have to look closely, but there is an opal edge. You can see the opal clearly on the peach opal tumbler pictured to the right.

The normal pitchers have a nicely ruffled top edge. Perhaps the workers at the Dugan company tried experimenting with a couple of pitchers because a very few are known with a different top shaping. The experimental or prototypes have no ruffles. These are sometimes referred to as stove pipe tops. They are found in white and marigold, with very few of either color known.

As you can see, the normal white pitcher appears on the left, while the stove top version is on the right.

The tops of the two vintage pitchers are shown above. Even the stove pipe top isn’t as elongated as the reproduction shown below it.

Heavy Iris tumblers are known in a broader range of colors according to www.ddoty.com . There are marigold, white, and purple tumblers to match the pitchers mentioned above, and one peach opal tumbler has been sold. Other colors known for the tumblers are amber, horehound, lavender, and ice blue. A few tumblers, especially purple ones, have souvenir writing on them. One white tumbler was referred to as being slightly sun colored in an auction listing. Carnival Glass 101 lists the oxblood color as being found in tumblers. Oxblood is a dark reddish purple color.

Rarely found are jack-in-the-pulpit hat shapes which were fashioned from a tumbler while the glass was still molten. Those that have sold have been marigold or white. Carnival Glass 101 includes a purple one that had been found. I haven’t had the opportunity to see it. So, if you find one, and it’s pretty, you might want to buy it for your collection and send a photo to me.

 

Pictured above is the elegantly shaped jack-in-the- pulpit white hat made from the tumbler mold.

You will need to study the old pieces of Heavy Iris, because this pattern has been reproduced. It is relatively easy to recognize a new pitcher, but the new tumblers are very much like the old tumblers. The new pitchers have a taller area (about 2 inches), similar to the stove pipe old ones, but at the very top of the recent ones, there are ruffles. Look carefully at the photos provided. Many of the reproductions were made by the L.G. Wright Company, but others were made by Gibson or Fenton.

 

 

Look closely at the top quarter of the pitcher above. Notice how there is a wider band between the molded iris and the ruffled top. That indicates that this is a reproduction.

Several runs of vases were made in a variety of colors for Singleton Bailey. You won’t have to worry about differentiating them from classic vases, because to my knowledge there were no old Heavy Iris vases made. Fenton made many of these new vases, if not all.

If you have some old Heavy Iris pieces in colors or shapes, I didn’t list, please send a photo and description to me at dbcham@iowatelecom.net or snail mail it to me at 124 E. Honey Creek Dr., Manchester, IA 52057. I would love to include it in a future issue of The Carnival Pump.

Photo courtesy of Seeck Auctions.

This article first appeared in the ICGA Pump in the September 2017 issue and is reprinted with permission.