Carnival Glass Panther Pattern… how do you know?

The other day I received an email asking me how I knew an item I had up for sale was the Panther Pattern by Fenton.  Researching vintage glass, especially Carnival glass, is a passion of  mine, so I have quite the resource library.  If I do not know readily what the pattern is I will research it before putting it up for sale.

This is the item that was up for sale.  A very nice Fenton, Marigold Panther Sauce Bowl, with good color and mold strike and the lovely Butterfly and Berry back pattern.  But I digress… There are 4 books that I would recommend to anyone starting out:
Standard Encyclopedia of Carnival Glass, I have both the 10th and the 11th edition
Warman’s Carnival Glass (I have the 2nd edition)
Warman’s  Companion Carnival Glass.
David Doty’s New Field Guide to Carnival Glass for 2008 (This is the edition that I have older versions are available)

These books have a wealth of information and between them, they include probably every North American pattern known.

So, as to the question, “How did I know?”, well in this case, I knew the pattern because I was lucky enough to have a marvelous example of the pattern in blue as well as having researched it before I have also  handled many pieces of glass.   I provided the following reference information.  An excerpt from the Standard Encyclopedia of Carnival Glass on Panther:

“This interior pattern from the Fenton Art Glass Company is found in large and small berry bowls as well as a centerpiece…..”.

An excerpt from Warman’s Companion Carnival Glass:

Made Fenton
Colors known: amberina, amethyst, aqua, blue,..
Forms berry sets

Identifying characteristics: This interior pattern features two large stalking panthers accented by scrolling foliage.  The exterior pattern used is Butterfly and Berry.  Production began in 1914.

And last, but not least, a website where a person can look up the pattern for themselves: http://www.ddoty.com/panther.html. In order to provide an idea of the production date for the Fenton Panther bowl up for sale, I examined it for a trademark.  In 1970, Fenton began marking their glass with an oval with the word “Fenton” in script inside.  In 1980, they changed the size of the mark and included a numeral for the decade the glass was made, such as “8″ for 1980s, “9″ for 1990s and “0″ 2000.

Since the bowl had no trademark it would be pre-1970 and considered a vintage piece.  While all the books I have mentioned will also provide a price guide, I believe that if you are going to sell Carnival Glass you should have some idea of what the pieces have been going for at auction, and for this I rely on a publication put out by Tom and Sharon Mordini, Carnival Glass Auction Prices.  Any of the price guides are just that guides, they provide  you an idea what price the piece has sold for in the past.  When pricing your item for sale there are many things to look at; Color – it is common, rare, good, fair, poor; Iridescence- is it average,superb, fair, poor, Mold Strike: excellent, average, poor; does it have a trademark, does is have a back pattern, is it in excellent, good, fair or poor condition, is there any damage.

If you are going to collect or sell Carnival glass, I strongly recommend that you be prepared to do research to become familiar with the glass patterns, the various maker’s marks, and the best learning tool is handle the glass to get a feel for it.  You will want to know enough to tell the difference between a vintage, a re-issue, a new and a fake piece.

Tags: Vintage Pre-1940

Posted on Saturday, January 31st, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Cat: Thoughts & Musings
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