A Reason for Looking

By Bill Lavelle

The following is a short story about why we go out and continue looking for our carnival glass treasures.

This particular tale starts out in a little town in northern Illinois. Like many of you do, Katie and I were out on the hunt again, keeping a lookout for whatever may come along. We went into an antique shop and saw quite a bit of carnival glass. The shop owner explained to us that he had recently acquired a fair amount of marigold carnival glass from an estate. We were happy to hear that and went with him into a room where we saw plenty of items, including some very nice pieces.

While we were talking to him, he explained that he did have additional pieces in another room, so we followed him and indeed there was more.

As I was going through one of the cabinets, I spied this Cristalerias Rigolleau CR ashtray. I like collecting Carnival Glass ashtrays and although I already had one of these in amber, I certainly wanted to see this marigold one too. We took it out, nice iridescence, but the base color just looked somewhat off. Heck, I didn’t care, I was very happy to have found one at all! We concluded our business with the gentleman and Kate, and I went homeward bound with happy faces.

Once arriving home, we unpacked the day’s treasures for the inevitable washing and cleaning. As we were looking at them all, I remembered my earlier curiosity about the weird base color on the CR ashtray that we bought as marigold. The color was on the light side, but had a definite greenish tint to it. In addition, it looked like it had some white enameling on the flat edges surrounding the letters. Katie dug out her handy black light (that we forgot to take with us that particular day) and turned it on.

To our shock and surprise, it lit up like a neon sign and this wasn’t even in the dark! Both of our jaws dropped, and you could probably have made a good comedy shot out of our expressions.

The front of the CR ashtray on left. Note the writing inside to verify the maker, Cristalerias Rigolleau.  The front of the CR ashtray on the right shown under black light showing the fluorescence.

I looked at her and said, “It doesn’t come in this color, a CR ashtray in vaseline.” She looked at me and said, “It does now!”

We were both gobsmacked. We had found something we weren’t ever going to be looking for “because they don’t exist.” It sure is a funny feeling when you find something like this.

So this is why we all go out hunting. You don’t expect (but always hope) that you may someday find an unknown treasure. Although we’re out there as much as we can be, after this experience, I think I will have to keep on hunting carnival glass forever.

The photo to the above shows the back of the CR ashtray.

So, the reason for looking is that you never know what is waiting for you in that next little shop. To all of our carnival glass hunting addicted friends out there, keep on looking! If I found a piece like this, so can you! And I wish you all the very best of luck in your travels!

Photos courtesy of Kate and Bill Lavelle

This article first appeared in the ICGA Pump in the June 2017 issue and is reprinted with permission.