Pink Saturday ----- Cranberry glass

On Pink Saturday last week I posted about our visit to the Golden Museum and the pink Burmese glassware in their collection. For this Pink Saturday I featured some of the Cranberry glassware. For those that missed last week's post I reprinted the same information to fill you in on the museum.

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Recently, the Old Salt and I took a mini vacation and went to visit one of my brothers at his cabin on Table Rock Lake near Branson, Missouri. During our visit my brother and his wife took us to visit a local museum.

I have to admit that I have visited many local museums and most of them are full of nothing but journals, documents and photos telling the history of the area. If they have any displays, they usually contain very little that I had not seen cross over my fathers auction block during my years of working in the family business.

This museum turned out to be a real surprise. Frankly, it is situated out in the middle of nowhere in a unincorporated area known as Golden, Missouri (population 846 ) fifteen minutes from Arkansas. And it is without a doubt the best local museum I have visited. They have all types of Indian Artifacts, Civil War Artifacts, and many great collections. The glassware collection certainly outmatches many collections I have seen in large city museums.

Cranberry glass (or Gold Ruby glass as it is known in Europe) is a red glass made by adding gold chloride to the molten glass. The origins of cranberry glass making are murky. Some historians feel a form of this glass was first made in the late Roman Empire. The craft was then lost and rediscovered in the sixteenth century in Bohemia.

The most famous period of cranberry glass production was in 19th Century Britain during the Victorian Era. During mid-1800s through the end of the 19th century, glassblowers refined the art of making cranberry glass to create everything from vases and pitchers to decanters with matching tumblers. Some of the most rare and expensive items found from this era take the shape of beautiful lamps and other lighting fixtures.

While Victorian cranberry glass still graces the shelves of antique shops in limited quantities , it's much easier to find newer items these days. Plus, newer methods of making Cranberry glass have reduced the time and expense involved in the production of the older glass. While the newer glass pieces aren't technically reproductions, they can be confused with older glass by collectors and novice dealers. This is especially true with Fenton pieces made during the 1940's and 1950's before Fenton began marking its glass.

I am linking this post to Pink Saturday, hosted by Beverly at How Sweet the Sound. To join in the fun or just visit the pink post of others visit Beverly and her friends at

Pink Saturday