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Home owners from about 1860 onwards were ordering flattering pink glass
shades for their oil- (and later gas-) lamps. Today an old non-working
brass lamp with a cranberry shade is £100 -£350.
For sweetmeats,
flowers and fingers
Soon every Victorian
hostess also hankered for an “epergne” table centrepiece in cranberry
glass. They could stand more than 20 inches high on the dining table,
holding sweetmeats and flowers. They can be worth around £700 today - and
it’s surprising how many, disassembled, are still preserved in attics.
Then there are
matching wine glasses, fingerbowls, decanters, water jugs, biscuit
barrels. Valuing them today is tricky: old cranberry wine glasses with white
stems are rarely more then £15, because many were made.
The other accessories
will depend on whether they are really Victorian, with top prices
going to items that have added gilding, a good weight, or maybe some
hand-cutting. At London’s Olympia fairs, all the very-OK glass dealers there will show you genuine
articles, with values from £50 for a simple fingerbowl to £1500 for a
wonderfully gilded job. Olympia's fairs are held in spring, summer and
winter: the winter one takes place 8-14 November. Details
www.olympia-antiques.co.uk
(020 7370 8188)
Spot the Italian
As always, check if
you’re not sure of a piece’s age. In the 1950s and 60s another wave of
tourists (those Yanks again) started snapping up our antiques supplies,
leading dodgier dealers to import repro stuff from Italy. You can spot most
Italian pieces (which are seldom worth more than £10) by their frilly white
edges and sometimes ‘dimpling’.
 All
dealers sometimes call cranberry glass by its old name, ‘ruby glass’ –
which comes in very handy when they are trying to sell you a 60th wedding
anniversary present. It makes a very appropriate one of course.
Those same dealers
cherish a charming legend about how cranberry was made: ‘The master of
the glassworks would throw a gold sovereign into the clear liquid glass to
turn it red’. Well, call me a spoilsport, but the truth is that although
gold was used, it had to be in fine powder form - sorry!
Previous editions:
Family Treasures - 1
Family Treasures - 2
Family Treasures - 3
Family Treasures - 4
Family Treasures - 5
Family Treasures - 6
Family Treasures - 7
Family Treasures - 8
Family Treasures - 9
For subsequent editions - see the laterlife
interest index
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