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Celebrating Amber Glass - Making a Comeback
Back in 1999 when we started in business, we tripped over amber depression glass at every auction and flea market. It was cheap because it didn’t sell well. I had Madrid amber pieces languish for 5 years in perfect condition and bargain prices on eBay and my online store Cat Lady Kate’s Elegant and Depression Glass. Even some members of my glass group, the Glass and Pottery Sellers Association, disliked amber glass.
If you look on eBay today, you’ll find more pink depression than amber - and that is a real switch. Pink sells and sells well; green glass has always done well and blue remains popular. But what you will also find are listings for amber glass that get multiple bids and sell for close to book value. What’s changed to make amber more in style? You can find more home furnishings in earth tones - but you also find pastels and the lighter tones that work better with pink and green. I don’t know what caused the change, but as someone who does like amber, it makes me glad to see a beautiful color appreciated once again.
Even the color itself varies, from an almost brownish yellow to a rich gold with red overtones, and it comes in a huge array of styles and designs. Almost every depression glass company made some amber, and a few companies were extremely successful with multiple amber patterns, notably Federal Glass with Madrid, Sharon and Patrician. Let’s look at a few pieces amber glass by elegant and depression glass companies.
Federal Glass called their amber glass Golden Glo and used it for many patterns. Federal’s is a little lighter colored amber, with a lot of yellow in it, and no reddish tones. My impression from reading advertisements of the period is that amber was considered rather a breakthrough color and was widely accepted. Amber is a warm tone that evokes feelings of home.
First let’s look at the lovely Patrician depression glass pattern. Patrician is called Spoke in reference to the main center design of a spoked wheel. We find more of the Patrician amber grill plates than any other piece. Patrician has not been reproduced and was made from 1933 to 1937. We show the oval platter and the sherbet. We photographed the sherbet under natural light and the picture is a little more true to color. Amber is for me the hardest color to photograph and have come out anywhere close to the actual color.
Federal Glass had more patterns in amber depression glass than many of the other major companies, including Normandie, Madrid, Sharon and Rosemary. Normandie is also called Bouquet and Lattice because of the intricate mold-etched design that has - yes - a lattice between panels of flowers. Federal Glass made Normandie from 1933 to 1940 and has not been reproduced. We’ll show the Normandie pitcher which is a stunning piece of amber depression glass.
The next pattern we show is Madrid, which has been reproduced. However, if you are reasonably careful you can avoid getting reproduction pieces. Amber was reproduced for the American bicentennial and has a 76 in the corner. The blue and pink repros are heavy, not quite the right color and some shapes were never made originally. For example, there is a cake plate made by gluing a candleholder to the underside of a plate, rather clever, but not depression glass. It’s a shame that there are reproductions of this great pattern as it has been one of the most popular, is fairly available, and came in a myriad of shapes which makes it a good choice to collect. We show the cookie jar.
The next pattern is also from Federal Glass. (Did we mention that Federal made a lot of amber depression patterns?) This is Sharon, also called Cabbage Rose. There are reproductions of Sharon, mainly in pink, but also some other odd colors. But to the best of my knowledge, amber has not been reproduced. We will show the cup.
Indiana made a few depression glass patterns in amber, notably Daisy. They continued making colored glass into the 1970s and even later. They made Daisy off and on for over 40 years, but the amber Daisy was true depression glass, made in the late 1930s. This two-handled bowl is the cream soup.
Hocking Glass made very little amber. They used Topaz, a clear yellow, more often. Just to highlight the difference, we will show a topaz yellow cup in Cameo, or Ballerina, depression glass and a Princess footed water tumbler. The Princess is referred to as amber but it is more yellow than amber.
Besides depression glass, most of the elegant glass makers, such as Fostoria and Cambridge, made amber. They didn’t always call it amber however, and some of the tints varied from reddish to nearly yellow.
The first one we show is Fostoria Colonial Prism. Fostoria’s amber color is simply gorgeous, very rich and warm looking with a bit of red tone. This bowl looks like art glass with the beautiful lace edge and rich coloring, but it is elegant depression glass, made in the late 1920s / early 1930s. The bowl is called a cabarette bowl, and would be perfect as a centerpiece or on a side table.
Fostoria used amber for stemware too. Royal and Seville are two etched patterns that you can find in amber and Fostoria made several stemware blanks in amber. We will show the small cocktail in stem line 5093 and the lunch plate in Royal etch. You can see the consistency of the color - noticeably darker and redder than the depression glass we showed and quite different from Fostoria’s yellow Topaz color.
The last piece of elegant depression glass we show is from Cambridge. This is etching number 704, which the noted author Gene Florence nicknamed Windows Border. This is one of my favorite etches and is stunning in Cambridge’s rich amber color.
Just to complete the picture, we will show two pieces from the 1970s. One is a Sandwich novelty from Indiana Glass that was marketed through Tiara home parties and the other is a Georgian goblet by Viking Glass.
A customer recently emailed me to ask plaintively whether we had any amber Sharon, since all she could find was pink. Back in the late 1990s, we never found pink, only amber, but my amber glass inventory is nearly depleted! It seems like my customer is not the only one who has rediscovered the beautiful amber elegant and depression glass from Federal, Fostoria, Cambridge, Indiana and Viking!
