Story Photos
 Watermelon glass -- as this pink and green stemware from the Great Depression is known -- is as beautiful as it is difficult to find. Photo by Roger Werth / The Daily News.
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Shades of meaning: Glass from Depression proves rich in historic and sentimental value
Tuesday, January 8, 2008 8:07 AM PST
By Irene Martin / for The Daily News
Printable version
E-mail this article"So you don't mind heavy metal?"
It was an odd question, coming from our newly arrived dinner guest, a glass-blower by trade.
He laughed at my stupefied expression, and pointed to the pink depression glass goblets I'd set on the table for our wine.
"Selenium," he said. "That's the metal ingredient they used to give the glass that pink color."
After dinner I brought out some glassware I had long wanted to know more about. The goblets were known as pink and green Depression glass, sometimes called watermelon glass because of the color combination.
Popular in the 1920s and '30s, the bicolored glassware has become scarce, partly because not much was made to begin with, compared to other types of depression glass, and also because of its fragility.
Collectors consider it to be Elegant Glass, compared to the lesser quality and cheaper wares that were available at the time. Generally the glasses have a pink bowl with a green or pink stem and green foot. Other items, such as pitchers and sugar bowls and creamers, have a pink or green body with handles of the opposite color.
They were made in just a few shapes: stemware, pitchers, sugar and creamer sets, and vases.
Some were etched, usually with floral patterns. The color shading varied from a pale, watery green to almost fluorescent, and pale to deep pink.
Companies that made watermelon glass included the Louie Glass Company, the Weston Glass Company, and The West Virginia Specialty Glass Co., all located in West Virginia, as well as Tiffin Glass, Standard Glass, Cambridge Glass and U.S. Glass, McDonald Glass Works of Pennsylvania, and the Fry Glass Company of Rochester, Pennsylvania.
All employed highly qualified glass-blowers to produce the elegant glassware. Watermelon glass will ring when tapped with a finger, while the more common Depression glassware which was its contemporary makes a "plink" sound.
Despite the numbers of companies that made it, it is scarce today. Comments from antique dealers I've talked to about watermelon glass all expressed similar opinions: "Hard to find." "Not easily available." "Sold everything I had to one woman, and haven't been able to build any more inventory." "Difficult to put together a complete set of glasses."
Overwhelmingly, what has survived is stemware.
But back to my dinner guest. "What can you tell me about this stemware?" I asked.
He picked up a goblet and examined it. "The pink shade comes from the addition of selenium to the molten glass; the green from chrome plus some other metal, possibly copper or iron oxide, depending upon the shade of green desired.
"The stems were frequently, although not always, cast in a mold, with the foot cast on the stem using a footing tool," he told me. "The bowl of the goblet was generally mold blown, and either ground smooth or fire polished around the edge. Depending upon the size desired, the bowl might be drawn out to create a glass of different size. The same pattern might be used to create a water goblet, sherbet bowl and wine glass, the only difference being the size of the various pieces."
Due to the amount of work required to create bowl, stem and foot and attach them to each other, watermelon glass was fairly costly to make and to buy. I inherited my pieces through my husband's family. Intrigued by its elegance and unusual bicolor, I searched for watermelon glass in antique shops and shows, with limited success.
In a Portland, Oregon show with 1,600 booths, it took me the whole day to ferret out six examples of goblets of various sizes in two booths. Prices ranged from $40 for a pink optic champagne glass with a green stem, to $76 for a large goblet, also with a green stem.\
At a Tacoma show, I found a vase, about six inches high, for $75. A Tacoma antique mall with over a hundred vendors yielded only a set of four goblets for $100.
A favorite antique shop yielded one piece, an inkstand, priced at $85. A Vancouver show turned up a footed round vase, approximately four inches high, for $125, and a pitcher, about 10 inches high, green with a pink handle, for $275. Goblets with a pink bowl and stem and green foot recorded prices of $76.
Even an extensive Internet search yielded fewer than three dozen pieces, with individual stemware pieces ranging from $35 to $115 and larger pieces, such as a green pitcher with a pink handle and lid, at $250.
Pieces with etched patterns are scarcer, and usually more valuable. Cracks and chips are fatal to the value of the ware, although for household use sometimes these can be ground down by a professional glass restorer.
So, do I like heavy metal?
You bet, especially when it comes in shades of pink and green.
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