Popular '50s and '60s Glass: Color Along the River : With Price Guide (A Schiffer Book for Collectors)

Subtitled "Color Along the River," this book features handcrafted glassware produced in the 1950's and 1960's along the Ohio River Valley, an area in West Virginia famed for its glassmaking. The book contains over 400 color photos of glassware, plus labels, catalog page reprints, company histories, and a price guide. Featured companies include Blenko, Pilgrim, Kanawha, Rainbow, A.F. Bischoff, Fostoria, Viking, and Morgantown. There is also a chapter on cased and satin glass from international sources, such as Italy and Scandinavia. This book is a wonderful source of information on glassware that was poorly documented elsewhere in 1995: crackle glass, all those colorful decanters with pointy teardrop stoppers, cased glass, pinched vases, and oversized bud vases. (Many of these items were not marked, but carried paper labels which quickly wore off.) There is also a chapter on figural glass, featuring the fish, birds, and elephants that were so popular during these decades.Much of this type of glass is definitely an aquired taste. People seem to love it or hate it: currently it doesn't seem to have the mass following of, say, Depression glass or Fenton. Colors range from the garish (orange) to the gloomy (brown, gray), and items range from the delicate to the downright clunky. Some of the styles are just too recent for people to get too excited about. Having said that, Blenko in particular is seeing quite an upswing in popularity: some of its large decanters--especially amberina--are currently selling for well over $100. And crackle glass has a lot of afficionados. There is no doubt that glass of the 1950's and 1960's will be highly collectible in the near future. This is a unique book, which highlights "a pronounced awareness of color, form, and texture" which took place during these decades.