Tales From the Mad Hatter Part VI-Dugan Circle Scroll
By Kate Lavelle
Welcome one and all to yet another pleasant tea party where we shall enjoy our tea and scones while we feature one of the Mad Hatter’s all-time favorite patterns. This installment finds us with the Dugan Glass Company and their excellent Circle Scroll pattern. If this feels a bit like déjà vu, it may be due to the fact that I wrote an article for the March 2014 Carnival Pump on this pattern, called “The Fab Four.” In all honesty though, this pattern must be included in the “Hatter” series for it to be correct and inclusive of all of the Carnival Glass hat vase patterns known. The information and pictures featured herein are all fresh and new.
Circle Scroll is an early Dugan pattern, predating their Carnival Glass production. Make no mistake about it; this is not a Diamond product. Dugan manufactured it initially in several shapes ranging from water sets, berry sets, table or breakfast sets to a few other forms in opalescent glass. These were produced in delightful white opal, green opal and blue opal glass. Carnival glass production is believed to have been brief, from 1909 to 1910 according to esteemed Carnival Glass experts Diane Fry and Carl O. Burns.
The various shapes of Circle Scroll that Dugan made in Carnival Glass were all produced in various shades of amethyst and marigold, including the hat vase. This is certainly out of character for Dugan, as they made precious little marigold. Thomas Dugan was much more inclined to make peach opal, not marigold. After Thomas and Alfred Dugan left the factory around Christmas 1912, Carnival Glass continued to be produced, and it officially became the Diamond Glass Company on July 1, 1913. Marigold was thereafter produced on a regular basis by Diamond, but sometimes these pieces may exhibit substandard iridescence and may not be very colorful or satisfactory examples.
The four forms of the Circle Scroll hat vase are ruffled, two sides up, tri-corner and JIP. All of the hat vases were created, like the small swung vases, from the tumbler mould. Oddly enough, there are far more of these hat vases or “tumbler whimseys” to be found than the actual tumblers, which are also found only in amethyst or marigold. The base bottom is 2½ inches in diameter and sports a 24-point hexagonal shaped star.
Keep in mind that none of the shapes are easily found in either color. The JIP shape is not often seen, it took the help of Tom Mordini to find me a nice marigold one after I had been searching for years. The hardest shape for some collectors, including me, has proven to be the two sides up version in either color. The two sides up shape in marigold eluded me the longest. When I first submitted this installment of the Hatter series to The Pump editor Barb Chamberlain, I still didn’t have one. I went so far as to ask in the article for help from anyone out there who had one, they were willing to part with. But sure enough, within just a few days I actually found one and couldn’t believe it. Now I just had to be lucky and win the bidding on it! It was offered in the May 7th Mason City Seeck auction. We were unable to attend in person this time, so I crossed my fingers, eyes, arms, legs and toes and made an absentee bid. You can bet that I was on pins and needles all day! Completing the entire gamut of Circle Scroll hat vases/tumbler whimseys had been a goal of mine for way over a decade. I knew other collectors who had tried to achieve this as well, had met with no success and gave up trying. God listens to the prayers of Mad Hatters too and I was beyond joyful to learn that our bid succeeded, and we now have the whole “fam damily.” The photo here of it is courtesy of Seeck Auctions via Barb Chamberlain. I haven’t even seen the darn thing in person as of this writing, but sure can’t wait to see this elusive gem!
The two sides up, above, is Kate’s latest addition from the May 7 Seeck auction just in time for inclusion in The Carnival Pump.
Of the four amethyst or oxblood Circle Scroll hat vases that we currently own, none of them are iridized on the exterior except for maybe a paltry quarter-inch at the base. However, there are photographs displayed on the internet of some really lovely amethyst examples that do indeed feature very good exterior iridescence. Alternatively, at least two of our four marigold examples are iridized on both the exterior and interior. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to this inconsistency. I’ve often thought one sided iridescence may have been a cost cutting effort and not a wise choice at that. In this instance, the beauty of the exterior pattern of the Circle Scroll hat vase is only intensified with a generous dose of outer iridescence.
Fans of Lewis Carroll are no doubt as excited as I am that they will be releasing Tim Burton’s new production of Alice Through the Looking Glass at the end of May as a sequel to his Alice in Wonderland. In Carroll’s book, Through the Looking Glass, the Hatter is actually identified only as “Hatta.” He has a much smaller role than he does in Alice in Wonderland. Johnny Depp again portrays the Hatter (or Hatta) in the sequel, and it will be interesting to see just how big his role will be in this new film version. For a teaser, check out the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anvGUW-vsLE . “Saving the Hatter is only a matter of time.”? Hmm. Mercy, I do so hope they rescue the poor fellow!
Please remember to keep your hat vases handy and filled with tasty treats until the next time when we will continue with yet another scintillating installment of the Mad Hatter series.
Photos courtesy of Kate Lavelle.
This article first appeared in the ICGA Pump in the June 2016 issue and is reprinted with permission.