My Halloween Glass Collection

I have a collection of vintage, opaque, orange and black glass, serving dishes that I have been growing piece by piece over many years. Until recently it lived in my kitchen cupboards.  I was in the mood to switch things up in the house and decided to move them out into the open and now they live in an IKEA bookshelf that had been holding my Halloween art.

I tried to do some research for you on the history of my opaque, orange glassware and came up with very little after an hour on Google. My best guess is that was made in the 1940s and was a knock-off of the very collectable Czech Tango glassware. It is molded- not blown glass and the black portions are sometimes painted on rather than black glass. Some of my pieces look like the orange is reverse painted. There are no maker's marks on any of the pieces.  All this means is that the pieces I collect range from $10 to $40 dollars as opposed to $200 and above for Tango glass. That doesn't mean it's easy to find however. I don't come upon it that often.

Most of my black glass collection is a knock-off of Amethyst glass which looks black, but when held up to the light is actually a dark purple. Again, my opaque black pieces cost under $40. I love my inexpensive collection because I can use it rather than putting it behind a velvet rope in a cabinet under special light. It gets pulled out every Halloween to be used as serving pieces. I have collected enough small lunch plates from tag sales, flea markets, and antique shops to feed hors d'oeuvres to a party of 30. So much nicer than printed paper plates, don't you think?

I display some of my collection along with my spooky books and small Halloween art objects. I like how it looks and am sharing it with you today. If anyone knows the history behind the orange glass, I'd love to know it. Send me a message.

I have a new piece that hasn't found a permanent home yet because the cabinet is full! I guess it will end up in the cupboard with the rest of the collection until I can figure out a way to display it all.

Such are the woes of a collector.