Cambridge Glass Company Swans Punch Set, ca. 1930
GUEST:
Well, I brought my green swan. It was my great-grandmother's. I remember it in the early '40s. I spent a lot of time at her house and she always had this on her dining room table and floated flowers in it.
APPRAISER:
I see. And did she have the little swans also?
GUEST:
She had two little swans and I have been looking and looking and I finally found two more. I was at an antiques show out in South Dakota and this man happened to have two green little swans.
APPRAISER:
I see.
GUEST:
It was quite surprising to me, but I quickly grabbed them up. I noticed that this one has a $65 price tag on it.
APPRAISER:
So you thought very highly of them at the time.
GUEST:
Right, I did.
APPRAISER:
And did you notice on the bottom of your swans that they are marked with a "C"?
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
And do you know what that means?
GUEST:
Yes, I do. That is Cambridge.
APPRAISER:
All right. And the largest swan of the group does indeed have that "C" also on the bottom of it. It's pressed glass.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
And it is pressed into a mold. Each little design is included in the mold itself and then the hot glass is poured into the mold and pressed into it, so that this wonderful pattern comes out on the final product. And the detail is extraordinary: every little feather, every little feather within each feather. It's great. There was a long period of time that the Cambridge Glass Company was in business and continued to be very, very prosperous. And they put out the kind of glass that you could buy in small shops and shops like Woolworth's and Kresge's and gift shops. It's not the top quality
of glass from America and it's certainly far from the bottom. Pieces like this are especially unusual because they're figural. And this swan is probably the largest size that they made. I've heard this called a punch bowl.
GUEST:
I have heard that, but I just thought it was kind of an unusual type of punch bowl, but I'll accept that.
APPRAISER:
Well, because Cambridge glass is so popular and so collectible, surprisingly, a set like this would bring in the $2,000 to $3,000 range.
GUEST:
Oh, marvelous. Very good.
Appraisal Details
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