Cranberry Glass Bowl Featured at Outasite!! Collectibles

This week, Outasite!! Collectibles is featuring this stunning Victorian era cranberry glass bowl. It is a Victorian flashed cranberry glass bowl with an applied collar of hand pulled circles that look like flowers. This bowl is probably from the late 19th Century or early 20th century and the cranberry glass has many bubbles consistent with it’s age. This cranberry may have had a lid at one time. It measures about 5.25 inches in diameter and almost 2 inches tall.

Cranberry Glass is a reddish glass that is made by adding gold chloride to molten glass. Most accounts attribute the first pieces of cranberry glass to the Florentine glass maker Antonio Neri in the 1600’s; Others feel that it has been around even longer than that. Whatever the case, cranberry art glass is very collectible and sought after by many people. Cranberry glass may also be referred to as gold ruby by people in Europe. Visit Outasite!! Collectibles for more antique and vintage cranberry glass merchandise.

Cast Iron Doorstops Price on the Rise

Hubley Manufacturing Company was incorporated by John Hubley in 1894 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The company is known for producing a large array of toys but their claim to fame were the wonderful cast iron toys that they made before World War II. After the war, the company changed to a cast iron alloy. Hubley made objects of many shapes and designs including beautiful horse drawn carriages, vehicles, toys, dogs and doorstops. The doorstops have recently been selling for record prices. A doorstop is an object that is used to hold a door open or closed. Sought after by folk art collectors, cast iron collectors, door stop collectors as well as other collectors and designers have made prices go through the roof.

Although they became predominant in Victorian European home in the early 19th Century, it is widely believed that doorstops were first made in the 18th Century. In the beginning, doorstops were nothing more than any object you could find to keep a door open or closed including rocks, wood or any other thing that was heavy enough. It wasn’t until the Victorian Era brought a wave of decorated doorstops made to look more attractive than a rock. European foundries of the time made doorstops look like dogs and flowers. Doorstops did not become popular in the U.S. until the early 1920’s. Women of that era bought the doorstops to coordinate with other thing in their homes including bookends and shade pulls.

Phillumeny – Collecting Matchbooks & Matchboxes

In 1826 a major invention in the field of fire was made by a little known pharmacist in the town of Stockton-on-Tees, England. This was the birth of the friction match as we know it today. As more and more people started using this wonderful invention to light fires, pipes, cigars, cigarettes and candles, more and more manufacturers proliferated and started producing matches; each company and or manufacturer putting their matches in colorful containers, matchbooks and match boxes.

People that collect matchboxes, matchbooks and matchbox labels are called Phillumenists and their hobby is referred to as Phillumeny, a word which was first coined in 1943 by British collector Marjorie S. Evans. Many people in different areas of the world collect all manner of covers and matchboxes, but most stick to what they know best and that is generally what was common for their particular area of the world. An example being matchbook covers which are more collectible here in the U.S. than in say Europe or the Middle East.

In the 1830’s match safes were invented for the sole purpose of keeping matches safe from moisture and to have a handy friction surface where the match could be struck. They were very popular during the Victorian Era and were made of many different materials and many were intricately designed and ornately decorated. Some are so beautiful they are nothing less than a priceless piece of art. The pictured match safe in the shape of a grass hut, measures 1.5” x 2.5” and was recently sold on eBay for $585.