Dear Helaine and Joe: What can you tell me about the maker, history and value of this vase? It is one of a pair. — N.S. Davenport, Iowa
Dear N.S.: Over the years the company that made this pair of vases has been known by a lot of names, and perhaps the most unusual and enigmatic was simply Factory R.
This manufacturer went into business in 1889 in Tiffin, Ohio, as the A.J. Beatty Co., and its primary product was drinking glasses. In 1892 it joined the many entities of the giant United States Glass Co. and were designated their Factory R. Five years later in 1897, the United States Glass Co. sent its tumbler production elsewhere, and the Tiffin operation began focusing on blown crystal wares decorated with cut designs.
During the 1920s, however, Tiffin became the most important factory in the United States Glass Co.'s group of facilities, and the firm's logo changed from a shield with the initials "USGC" inside to one that read "Tiffin" superimposed over a "T." The other factories in the conglomerate sold their products through the Tiffin catalog, and the Tiffin Glass Co. came into its own.
Until the mid-1920s Tiffin's wares were mainly crystal, but at this time the company added a spectrum of colors that included yellow, blue, green, white, red, pink, amber, purple and black. The black was an opaque glass that was often finished with a dip in an acid bath that left a grainy surface, and collectors usually refer to it as "satin glass."
This black glass was decorated in a number of different ways — it was painted, it was etched, it was embellished with gold stencils, it was accented with silver overlay, and it was accented with a method referred to as coralene. Coralene was first popular during the late Victorian era, and it is a decorative method in which tiny glass beads are used to decorate the surface of a piece of glass.
Sometimes the glass beads are colored and sometimes they are not. The uncolored ones are usually placed over painted areas, and when the object is heated the beads and the enamel fuse to make the design. This latter method is the one Tiffin used.
The decoration on the vase in today's question is indeed coralene, and it was made for a time at the Tiffin factory during the 1920s. Most Tiffin coralene was done on black satin glass with a raised poppy design, and examples found in red satin glass with the same poppy pattern are rare.
Some of these Tiffin coralene pieces are nicely done, but others can be rather crude. Luckily, N.S.'s vases are very attractive, and in the past few years, they have become rather difficult to find.
A matched pair is also a big plus, and over the past decade or so Tiffin's products have become very popular with collectors. For insurance replacement purposes, this pair of Tiffin coralene vases should be valued in the $350 to $450 range.
Helaine Fendelman is feature editor at Country Living magazine and Joe Rosson writes about antiques at The Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee. Questions can by mailed to them at P.O. Box 12208, Knoxville, TN 37912-0208.