Introducing the History Mystery Series for Vintage Treasure Hunters

Introducing the History Mystery Series for Vintage Treasure Hunters

One of my very favourite activities is to play detective and help my friends with their vintage sleuthing. For the past few years I’ve received messages on Instagram in which people will ask if I know any history about a piece they have, or ask how much they should pay, or sometimes they need help finding missing pieces from a set, and sometimes they just want to show off some of their awesome scores.

I ADORE these convos. Truly, nothing delights me more. And, since it’s been a few years doing this, I thought it might be fun to start to share some of the fascinating object histories we unearth and mysteries we uncover.

First up: Sandra scored these sweet wine glasses and wanted to know more.


I recognized the pink and green glasses right away as thumbprint goblets — “thumbprint” for the circular indents along the bowl.

You can see that the pink glass has a seam down the side, indicating that it’s pressed glass, which means it was a mass produced form.

In fact, these pink and green glasses were produced in a variety of colours by the Bartlett-Collins Glass Company of Sapulpa, Oklahoma.

My guess of 1960s was confirmed when I spotted a near-identical example on the cover of a Bartlett-Collins catalogue from 1968! Though I’m not sure how much they sold for originally, you can find a pair of these beauties for between $10-30/set or more, depending on the colour. The dreamy iridescent shades seem to go for a higher price than the flat colours.

Great find, Sandra @sandra_e_grant! Thanks for sharing!

Sources:

https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=GL002

http://glassloversglassdatabase.com/companies/BartlettCollins.html

https://magwv.pastperfectonline.com/bycreator?keyword=Bartlett-Collins+Company