The Wonderful World of Glass Animal Figurines United States Companies

 Last month in the Mountain States Collector I brought you some information on European glass companies that made animal figurines.  This month, I’m jumping across the pond to write about U.S. manufactured figurines.  In both of these articles, I’m focusing on non-human critters, mostly real, but occasionally some that are imaginary.  Like a dragon or phoenix.  In order to capture the attention of buyers on a smaller scale, a lot of companies made figurines, such as glass animals.  I excluded pre-1900 glass from this work; there are animals from the EAPG period, but too much to address here.  Companies acquired molds as failing companies closed, creating an entire new collecting opportunity.

 Westmoreland early contributions were a (French) bulldog doorstop, a shorter bulldog, along with Sandwich style different dolphin pieces.  Westmoreland produced a variety of novelties over the years, such as birds, turtles, a starfish, and a pig.  They made covered dishes as a camel, rooster, and cigarette-bearing tumble.  Tiffin Glass designed two unusual felines in the 1920s in black, white and mixed colors.  They were likely more accepted in the 1970s during the MCM craze when reissued in both sizes by Fenton as Happy Cat in just a whole mess of colors, including iridized.

 During its fifty some years Cambridge Glass Co. brought many animals to life, early  on as EAPG candy containers.  During the 1920s and 1930s, they offered small novelty birds, butterflies, a frog, and a squirrel.  Unique owl and monkey lamps came in the 1920s.  Covered dishes were the Cambridge turkey and a pair of bunny boxes.  Cambridge made decanters during Prohibition of a cat and a sad-sack dog, no doubt to pour water.  From Sandwich Glass classical designs evolved colorful dolphins as candlesticks and other uses.  Mollusks figured in a big way with the Sea Shell line, mostly as stylized scallop, snail, or tridacna (giant clam) shells.  Flower blocks came as bird and turtles.  A rooster muddler has with a fruit-crushing base.  Three dimensional Ram’s Head bowls and candlesticks are pretty cool. Bookends included pairs of bird, lions and Scotties, all reproduced later in colors and crystal by other companies, often for National Cambridge Collectors benefit.  A 1930s wide-mouthed tall frog vase or handled pitcher is highly collectable.  Small but popular is the colorful Bridge Hound, later reproduced by Guernsey Glass.  Then there were swan bowls.  From the late 1920s into the 1950s, swans appeared in seven sizes, ranging from the nut dish to a punchbowl with swan punch cups.  Small ones have been reproduced by a number of newer companies, such as Mosser and Summit.  Companies around Cambridge, Ohio, made many small figurines and novelties from purchased and new molds included Mosser Glass, Degenharts’ Crystal Art Glass, Boyd Crystal Art Glass, and Guernsey Glass.  Summit Art Glass of Akron also bought molds from Cambridge, Imperial, Westmoreland, and St. Clair, making many novelties in a wide variety of colors.

 While Co-Operative Flint Glass did not produce a wide range of animals; their covered dishes were a frog, a dog, a cat, and a bear.   The elephant line has two sizes, the larger over 7 inches tall, both incredible, colorful, and with the small with different lids.  Fifty years later, Tiara Glass made a herd of covered elephants patterned after the smaller Co-Operative version, but these have also been imported.  Tiara’s parent Indiana Glass made bookends in the 1930s, as well as a lovely slinking panther.

 American Glass Company of Caney, KS, is cited as existing from 1939 and 1946, making figurines from K. R. Haley designs in a number of animals.  When American Glass dissolved, Haley became the designer for his namesake K.R. Haley Glassware, offering birds, dolphins, horses, and a llama.   Kemple Glass acquired a number of Haley-designed molds and produced some pieces later.

 Duncan & Miller Glass offered wonderful fish, including swordfish, and several birds.  Like Cambridge, Duncan & Miller was known for its swans, although in modernistic styles.  With transparent and opalescent colors, swans appeared in the Pall Mall and Sylvan lines.  Fostoria Glass peaked in the zoological parade from the 1930s through the 1950s with several  bookend sets, along with wonderful statuettes, some offered in several colors.  Smaller beasties included birds and other creatures.

 Heisey Glass created a variety of exquisite animals from the 1930s into the 1950s, many from the mind of ceramicist Royal Hickman.  Horses, a donkey, barnyard fowl, rabbits, pigs, dogs, and a bull were offerings in the 1940s and 1950s, possibly popular with first generation urbanites who grew up on farms.  A number of flying or sitting birds were made..  From a zoo appear an elephants, tigers, lions, giraffes, and a gazelle.  Sea creatures abounded as smoking accessories, candlesticks, and bookends.  Decanter stoppers  were heads of several animals.  If you cannot locate an original, Imperial made nearly every Heisey animal from acquired molds in crystal as well as most Imperial colors, including slags.    In 1992, Fenton made sets of fourteen Heisey animals in Rosalene for an HCA fundraiser, followed by Dalzell-Viking’s twelve Heisey critters in Lavender Ice in 1993.  Different Lavender Ice animals came later for HCA funding.

 Before its mold acquisitions from Heisey and Cambridge, Imperial Glass presented a Cathay line in the 1950s, later reissued in Imperial colors.  Other Imperial originals from the 1950s and on dogs, owls, a woodchuck, swans, some in Imperial slags and carnival finishes.   As previously noted, however, many of Imperial’s animals were made from Cambridge or Heisey molds, often in crystal, but many in Imperial colors.

 New Martinsville Glass cat and Volstead pup decanters similar to Cambridge’s.  There is an elephant incense burner.  The 1940s  brought an array of crystal and occasionally colored creatures as statuettes and bookends.  And swans that were similar to Duncan and  Miller swans, with subtle differences and combining with the popular Janice line.  The New Martinsville factory was purchased by one of its stockholders and renamed Viking Glass, then Dalzell-Viking Glass, which took over the factory in 1988.  As Viking, a number of earlier molds appeared in popular 1960s colors.  Epic Line roosters, egrets, ducks, rabbits and geese, a floppy-eared dog, and birds with long pointy tails appeared in an array of MCM colors and are much in demand.  These long-tailed birds are very similar to a Pairpoint 1930s controlled bubble piece.  Whales, crystal and amber flat bookends/paperweights also can be found.

As with several companies, were a creative time for Paden City.  Birds, including a dragon swan, horses, joined bookends in several shapes.  Crystal and shades of blue were primary colors for their zoo.  The exception was the “cottontail” bunny that sold as a cotton ball dispenser in crystal, light blue, or pink satin.

 L.E. Smith Glass made swan dishes in a variety of pastel colors for many years.  A flock of crystal and colored covered turkeys are often seen.  Smith produced Martha Stewart’s Jadeite and milk glass covered turkeys in the late 1990s.  Other interesting beasts appeared from L.E. Smith.

 Fenton ventured into the animal realm with an open-backed Jumbo elephant flower bowl and later an elephant whiskey bottle the neck as the trunk.  Dogs, birds, and butterflies accompanied a small sunfish newly identical to the 1913 Lalique fish sculpture. From the 1960s on, Fenton made a  variety of smaller animals in a plethora of colors including a whale, and, of course, a unicorn.  Again, apparently borrowing from a Lalique design, was a Fenton leaping fish paperweight.

 Jeanette Glass made bird and butterfly footed bowls and an elephant powder dish.  Hocking Glass gave us pachyderm covered bath salts dishes in the 1920, and a round fish jam jar in the 1950s.   Houze Glass was a specialty glass company and provided animal ink blotters during the fountain pen era.  Blenko Glass fish vases represented Modernism, standing on their front fins and tail, and are often copied.  Bookends from Blenko include birds and elephants.  Several sea creatures are available.  Kanawha Glass made a number of glass animals, as did Pilgrim Glass.  Some of those animals are obviously molded, while others appear more free-formed.  Pilgrim and  Rainbow Glass created MCM items in Huntington including whales and other, as well as  a “Lucerne” fish vase similar to the Blenko vision, but different.

 If you desire glass animals that are absolutely the highest quality, Steuben Glass Works might be your choice.  A particularly interesting group is Lloyd Atkins designed pressed hand coolers, palm size, with several beasts including a dragon.  These compact curiosities can be found for reasonable prices.  Stueben’s larger beasts include birds from ducks to a phoenix to swans, marine life such as alligators through a sea serpent and a walrus, a couple of invertebrates like a snail and a caterpillar, and terrestrials, from koalas to a dragon and a dinosaur.  These are usually quite pricy, at least by my standards.

 My sincere thanks to Roger and Millie Loucks for sharing pictures of Cambridge swans and a turkey.  I cannot say enough about the DeStefano family for providing a vital source with the Mountain States Collector.  Please remember and support local dealers and the upcoming Front Range Glass Show on October 5 and 6, 2024, sponsored by Jodi and Mark Uthe at the Loveland Ranch Event Center Complex McKee Building.  I can assure you that many of the items I have described will be for sale there. The Rocky Mountain Vintage Glass and Pottery Club (also known as the Rocky Mountain Depression Glass Society) always is present at the Front Range Glass Show.   Two books on glass animals by Dick and Pat Spencer, along with Lee Garmon, provide insight, as does a book by Debbie and Randy Coe.   The Coes’ daughter Myra has given us a nice tome on Glass Elephants.  An interesting 1978 paperback by Evelyn Zemel offers very nice insights. Collecting is and should be fun.  Enjoy!