A blog about depression glass.

A lot of people have been asking me about depression glassware lately and there really are a lot of ways to answer their questions. Sometimes they will be looking for green depression glass, or depression glass with certain patterns. They want to know how to find depression glass that is blue, or a bowl that might be amber. The point is that there are so many variations of depression glassware that knowing what you want is the first step. I’ve found good deals on depression glass bowls, depression glass dishes, plates and in more colors than I can even remember. If you are simply collecting it to collect it, it won’t matter greatly what kind you get exactly, but if you are completing a collection or trying to find specifics pieces for whatever reason then you need to know the ins and outs of finding them online.

Hocking depression glass is very popular, also known as anchor hocking. Antique depression glass has a long and rich history and that’s one of the things that drives collectors to it. Cherry blossom depression glass is one of the most beautiful types that I’ve seen but some people prefer just plain cherry or even red. When you are looking for the values of depression glass it’s important to look in more than one place and not to just rely on one source. I found a good depression glass pitcher and had it valued very different from two knowledgable antique dealers that dealt with depression glass. This also happened with different colors.

Out of the many colors and styles available such as red, green, blue, yellow, madred, mayfair, ruby, cameo, crystal, etched and others, you might find that one dealer might value it more than another. This especially happens if you are doing your collecting or trading offline as opposed to on the Internet. When everyone is connected, the value usually will stay fairly close in price, but offline one dealer might not communicate enough with other dealers to know if what he is charging is a good fair price. This can be good or bad depending on if it’s higher or lower of course. Depression glass prices are something to watch, and whether you are searching for bowls, cookie jars, vases or just trying to identify it, you should do your research.

If you are interested in becoming a true depression glass collector then the more information you read and find out then the better you will be prepared to be the best you can be. Pink depression glass is the most populer by far, but there are a lot of other types that are getting quite popular as well.

Green depression glass is most likely the second most popular, as far as collectibles go, but there are many, many colors that look just as good and can add to your collection. The patterns of depression glass can be quite different in style but most look elegant and classy because that is why the original depression glassware was created. To give off the illusion that it’s pricey and worth something, which at the time it wasn’t, but now it is.

Blue depression glass looks wonderful in the right setting and you would be amazing how when you take two colors and use them together to create a sort of theme how beautiful it can look. A depression glas bowl that has a nice pattern in it’s glass. Amber depression glass isn’t as popular but there are a lot of collector’s who choose this as being their favorite. What’s funny about it is that the less popular colors back when it was created, are now some of the most popular colors. They didn’t create a lot of hocking depression glass, so what happens 50 years later when the most rare is the most expensive? Exactly, and that’s why colors such as red, yellow and cherry blossom, while not the most popular back then, because the values of ruby depression glass weren’t seen as expensive back then, they didn’t create as much. Luckily for madrid, mayfair and clear depression glass, they gained popularity by not being popular back then.

Depression glass values can increase or decrease everyday, but because of how the only depression glass that is currently being created isn’t really valued much, they do not change very much. This is important for times when you want to say, buy a depression glass pitcher, or plates but you don’t want to overpay when next month the value would have dropped. This can be the case in some collectibles when the price jumps around more often but luckily it doesn’t in this genre of collectibles.

If you are a serious collector, or know of one, then you or the person you know would definitely avoid reproduced depression glass simply because it isn’t collectibly as soon as it becomes a new piece of glassware, that simply defeats the purpose.

One of the hardest thing for any collector to do is find a rare piece of depression glass that is fully intact, mint condition or even close to it and be able to purchase it at a decent price. It’s a lot more possible these days simply because of the wide range of the Internet. If you do run across a piece of pristine depression glass, even if you aren’t a collector it might be worth buying just to resell that one time, because money is money and if you are looking for a profit why not take advantage immediately.

One of the easier ways to find out if the glassware you are wanting to purchase is damaged, or even not in perfect condition is to run your finger along the edge of the depression glass to find any indentions or missing pieces. If you choose to hold the glass up to a light source that could also show what kind of condition it’s in. Because of the way it was originally shipped and produced, even back when it was new it would be found to not be perfect. It was distributed as a free glassware for promotion or simply by coming into a store, so people simply didn’t place as much value on it during those days as they currently do today.

Depression glass is usually a translucent, clear or it comes in other colors as well, glass ware that was around during the Great Depression in the 1930’s. It was given away for free, or at a great discount. They were sometimes placed in food boxes for free, promoting that food item, and encouraging customers to purchase it because it came with the free depression glass. Sometimes businesses would hand it out to anyone who walked in the door.

The majority of this depression glass was created and manufactured in the United States of America because they had easy and abundant access to the materials needed to create it. They also had the power that must be produced in order to make it, which was not available in all countries as abundantely as it was in the U.S. during those times. Some of the most common colors were pink, clear, blue, green, amber, red, yellow, jadeite, delphite, black, white. There were a few less common colors as well but they were not nearly as popular. 

Depression glass in general is not known for being the highest quality, but what makes it popular in modern times is simply for its collectibility and it has been every since sometime during the 1960’s. In recent times it’s getting harder and harder to locate for a reasonable price because all of the collectors are buying it up. Some pieces can sell for up to hundreds of dollars or even thousands in some cases for the more rare pieces. It is being reproduced on some level, but not nearly as the original level it was, and those newer pieces are not usually valued by collectors.

Pink Depression Glass is the most common of the depression glass colors by far. It is the most common simply because it was the most produced during the time of the Great Depression. It is and was created by a multitude of different manufacturers that also created other colors, just not as high in quantity.

If you are looking for the best pink depression glass then you should try a few auction sites, or local ads in your area. You can have it shipped just make sure that they use a lot of padding, bubbles, plastic wrap etc because it is very fragile.

Pink depression glass isn’t as fragile as a lot of other glass simply because it was designed to be shipped in all sorts of boxes back when it was originally created. They would oftentimes put it in boxes of food, cereal, wheat, oatmeal, etc just for incentive for the customer to purcahse their food as opposed to say, a box that didn’t offer anything.

They would sometimes have to redesign the size of their box, or container to accomadate the glass but that wasn’t a big deal back then because it wasn’t as automated as it is now. If you were to suddenly start trying to ship big depression glassware to customer’s in normal sized cereal and other food boxes today, it wouldn’t be nearly as streamlined, at least at the start.