I don’t know about you but my favorite season is fall. Possibly because of the crisp air and the falling leaves. Even with a bit of the warmth of spring in the air, I still reminisce about the last fall with its crisp cool nights and the brilliant colors.

I find myself, while on the hunt for dinnerware or other glass treasures, hunting for ones that are mindful of my favorite season, and using them for things like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, particularly if there will be company at my house for the holidays.. Lets face it, with some of the patterns we collect, its never too early to get hunting for the things we want, since we’re likely not going to be able to gather up the entire set in one fell swoop unless we are really, really lucky.

When I went out to the department store to find enough dishes for the last gathering in a pattern that I liked, the price tag had me gasping for air. While I love Royal Doulton, gathering up service for 15 on my budget just wasn’t what you might call practical … The price tag at the store was a bit on the exhorbitant side, the reasonably priced white bone with the gold rims won’t go in the microwave and I did have to draw the line at eating Thanksgiving from pretty patterned paper plates,  so I went internet shopping. Don’t you just LOVE shopping on the internet? What on earth did we do before we could buy up our favorite old glass pattern from someone in Virginia or California and have it sent to us in a week or less.

There are always bargains aplenty on the internet, the trick is knowing where to start, and more to the point, what to start with. How do you get the best buy for what you have to spend?

The answer is invariably depression glass. Depression glass, which is in essence, dime store glass thats yesterdays answer to the people who had no money to speak of, and wanted something pretty to put on their table. It was passed out as a premium in many cases, at gas stations, in laundry soap and many other areas, and there were literally thousands of different kinds and hundreds of different patterns.

I”ve found that the gorgeous fall colors are among the least collected oddly enough and the most reasonably purchased, so that you can find a beautiful amber, topaz or deep green , and the patterns may range from Columbia, Diana, Florentine, Iris and Herringbone, Lincoln Inn, Diamond, Waffler, Camero, Jubilee, Lorain, Princess, Rosemary and many others.

If you start shopping now, chances are you’re going to have found enough of your chosen pattern and color and purchased it, to have it all in stock by the time that autumn rolls around again, and no matter what you use it to serve, it will never look quite so pretty.
Happy Shopping.

Whitehall Pal Blue

Whitehall does look very much like the American pattern and is available in multiple colors much as it was.

Indiana Glass’Whitehall Pattern was produced in  gold or amber, crystal and olive green, as well as a gorgeous pale blue, a teal color and the crystal clear with a ruby stain.

The 1980’s saw the pattern still popular and blue and green carnival glass candy bowls were added to the offerings for the Whitehall pattern.
The American Whitehall pattern, close to the Whitehall, but not the same.  Now here’s where it gets confusing.

whitehall blue tumbler

The name was then changed to American Whitehall, which means that prior to the early part of the 1980’s your glassware is probably Whitehall, and later than perhaps 1980, that same glassware changed to American Whitehall and the molds were not the same ones used to produce the basic Whitehall.
There are some pronounced differences between the two different glasswares, so depending on what you’re collecting you’re going to want to pay attention to detail.

Sought by collectors today and highly prized, the Limoges region produced Limoges Porcelain in several factories from the 1700’s through the mid 1930’s prior to the change in economic factors that also saw changes in Limoges from the very ornate china that we know as Limoges to a more basic and simple home type tableware that is produced today.

At one point in history, most notably the 1920’s as many as 45 companies situated in the Limoge region were making tableware that was marked Limoges, according to Mary Frank Gaston, an expert in the China field.
Some LImoges was sent out blank, to be used for china painting, which was a huge hobby earlier in the last century, and many pieces of plain white Limoges which are hand painted were not made so by the factory but rather, eager home makers or art students.

Haviland, one of the more popular companies to produce Limoges is often time the preferred one of collectors, who will sometimes completely ignore all of the other factories, which is a great mistake in that some of them are very rare and also very valuable.

To Learn more about Limoges and how it is made and collected,

pay a visit to the Limoges Antiques Site