Many Fruits

By Barb Chamberlain

As many of you know, Many Fruits is a product of the Dugan Glass Company. This pattern name is sometimes confused with the Multi Fruits and Flowers pattern by Millersburg. Only a punch set was manufactured by Dugan in the Many Fruits pattern, which is disappointing because it is an elegant, well-done pattern.

Many Fruits does have a variety of fruits in the pattern, (not all of the fruits appear on each piece of the set). You can recognize it by the two sets of peaches and two clusters of grapes that alternate around the outside of the bowl. The interior of the bowl has a wreath of cherries with a center cluster of three cherries. To match those interior cherries, the base has a wreath of cherries wrapped around the top of the base. The cups, however, feature three groups of grapes that circle the exterior of the cup. You will find no cable or vine on this grape cup. As you can see, the “many fruits” are involved in the overall design of the set.

                                                                                              The purple set shows one set of pears on the exterior.

There are differences in the shaping of the bowls and bases. They all feature scallops and flutes around the top edge of the bowl, but some bowls remain fairly much as they came from the mold with a bit of a flare to the top. Other bowls had an additional step taken after they came from the mold, they were flared and then ruffled. The bases can be found either round or ruffled. I prefer to match the round bases with the slightly flared tops and the ruffled bases with the ruffled tops, but this is strictly a personal choice.

It appears that the purple Many Fruits punch sets come up for auction on a more frequent basis than the marigold sets. Most of these sets give a striking appearance on display. However, as many of you know that I have a preference for white carnival glass, I would love to find the very scarce white Many Fruits punch set. You will find it even harder to locate any blue sets. I don’t recall ever seeing one myself.

                                The above photo shows the marigold set exterior.    The photo below shows the marigold set interior with the grape pattern.

From my research, it appears that white Dugan glass was introduced in December of 1911 and blue in early 1912. Speculation that white and blue Many Fruits sets are almost impossible to find might be that the molds for the Many Fruits punch sets were lost in the fire of February 1912 and not many white or blue sets were produced before the fire.

As a side story, many years ago, when we were quite new carnival glass collectors, a white Many Fruits punch set came up for sale at an ICGA convention. I just knew I wanted that set. I bid and bid and bid, but finally quit bidding because I knew the bid was above our budget at that time, so I stopped bidding. I was sitting next to John Britt and when I stopped, he turned to me and asked if I was finished bidding, I said that I was. He then proceeded to bid. I don’t remember if he won the set or not, but I thought that it was kind of him not to bid until I was finished. I would love to have that white set—perhaps I will have an opportunity someday.

If you have a blue or white set and would like to share, I would love to see a photo so that I may include it in a future issue of The Carnival Pump. You may share at dbcham@iowatelecom.net or 124 Honey Creek Dr., Manchester, IA 52057.

This article first appeared in the ICGA Pump in the September 2018 issue and is reprinted with permission.