2020.10.06 Tuesday Stretch
I loved seeing the “Purple” pieces that folks have already posted, but tonight it’s Tuesday Stretch night and purple stretch glass will be featured. BugDoc Dave here! Like my carnival collecting friends, purple can range from a dark purple that has to be held up to the light to see the base glass color, to a pale purple that is easily seen. The companies often used “wisteria” to refer to their lighter purple color though Fenton used the spelling of Wistaria! Amethyst is another common name for purple glass.
Like others have stated, Imperial was a master of using iridescent coatings and my first purples will be their Art Glass Line pieces which we call Imperial Jewels today (this term also appears in their ads). The best purple in the Jewels line is the Pearl Amethyst. The base glass is a dark purple and the iridescence displays all the colors of the rainbow.
Their Pearl Silver is also on a dark purple glass, but the iridescent effect is of gunmetal silver to a golden hue.
In Imperial’s regular stretch glass line, they used Amethyst Ice to describe a multicolor iridescence on a light purple glass.
Central Glass made a rather “normal” purple stretch! It’s interesting that only bowls have shown up, so no candleholders by Central are known….yet.
Diamond Glass-Ware made two shades of purple, but they used three names: Amethyst (a light purple) and Twilight Wisteria (another lighter to medium purple) and Midnight Wisteria (a very dark purple). Here is an example of their Amethyst or Midnight Wisteria in a large ruffled, wide bowl:
And, a Midnight Wisteria piece in a cupped in, wide-based bowl:
Fenton made their Wistaria which is generally a light purple which can appear dark in thick items like candleholders. Here is a #200 guest set pitcher and tumbler in Wistaria:
Fenton made one more purple which is quite rare, and I’m not sure of the Fenton name. Collectors often call it Lilac.
Jeannette also made a few pieces of dark purple stretch glass and we are a bit unsure of their name for this color:
Lancaster Glass didn’t seem to make any purple stretch glass, but Northwood did – Royal Purple. This is a variable purple color with pieces ranging from a medium to dark purple color with bluish tones. This purple shows up mainly in the square-footed “Tree-of-Life” pieces and some vases.
U.S. Glass made only a few pieces in a medium to dark purple color. Here is one of their #314 mayo dishes in purple:
Finally, we have Vineland which seems to have had very little quality control in their colors. We have one bowl that has an original label with the name of “Wisteria” to define the purple color. We know of three bowl molds and two candleholder types in their Wisteria which can range from a rather light purple to really dark.
