Some weeks ago I visited Harvest Antiques which carries an interesting assortment of glass and china. Much to my surprise they had a fair number of pieces of custard glass. You don’t see that in this neck of the woods very often.
According to the book I reference below:
“Custard glass derives its name from the creamy yellow-white color in which most pieces can be found.” …”This lovely colored glass was introduced around 1895 in the United States and originally it was called “ivory” by most manufacturers. The color often varies from an opaque off white (almost a milk glass), to a rich yellow-green opaque. the density of the glass also varies, from thick and solid to light and transluscent quality.”
I was intrigued by this little piece. It obviously was painted at one time. It is marked with the uppercase “S” in a diamond and I figured that it would be easy to identify with the mark. In fact, it has not proven to be the case. I posted it on a couple sites and one response provided these links:
http://www.sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/ChicagoGlassMfg.pdf
https://sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/southernglass.pdf
Unfortunately the articles only mention bottles and jars.
I was inspired to acquire the Encyclopedia of Victorian Colored Pattern Glass Book 4: Custard glass from A to Z by William Heacock. This particular piece isn’t shown, but there are a number of pieces that I have seen in the past and wondered about their provenance. In fact I know that I saw a few pieces at Harvest Antiques. I just may have to visit again.
In the interim this pretty little piece remains a mystery.
This piece was produced by Northwood in Wheeling, West Virginia in the early years of the twentieth century.
