This set is one of my favorite finds.
I didn't know what I had when I first found it. I thought it was just a very heavy, pretty purple glass pitcher and 5 matching delicate glasses with clear stems. They appeared to be hand blown with slight variations in the stem thickness, some small bubbles and the pitcher has an unusual shape with an applied handle. They were in a big box full of glassware I purchased. The lady I got them from said her grandfather worked on the docks in New York City in the 1940s and mostly unloaded ships from Sweden and the Netherlands, and he brought some sets home for his wife. Many of the other glasses in the box had labels from Sweden. I tried to research them but couldn't find any information so I decided to just take some pictures and list them for sale. I had taken the pictures with natural lighting and they turned out good enough. When I took them into the computer room I turned on the fluorescent desk lamp and couldn't believe my eyes. They turned blue.
I yelled for my husband to come see and then immediately started researching color changing glass. I found references to several different names - Tiffin Twilight, Heisey Alexandrite, Cambridge Heatherbloom and Fostoria Wisteria - but none of the patterns matched. The best information I found on this type of glass was from Wikipedia which read - "The sharp absorption bands of neodymium cause the glass color to change under different lighting conditions, being reddish-purple under daylight or yellow incandescent light, but blue under white fluorescent lighting, or greenish under trichromatic lighting. This color-change phenomenon is highly prized by collectors." I still don't have any more information about, but I do know that I love it.
No comments:
Post a Comment