Abraham Lincoln Milk Glass

edited October 2011 in Question and Answer
Can anyone tell me who the maker of the piece is along with the year of production??

Thank You
Jeff

Comments

  • Your Lincoln white milk glass plaque is shown & described in E. McCalmley Belknap's 1949 book, "Milk Glass", page 58 & described some on p.53. As some of these old-time collectors could be, Belknap gets very excited, saying 'I scoured the country for over five years before finding...[a] proof [example for his collection].' Not once but three times he proclaims this piece 'very rare' and 'extremely rare', excellently detailed, size 8" by 10-1/2". But that was 1947 and much reproduction milkglass was made in 1950s, 60s & 70s, even later. I have not followed closely the collectors' cataloguing of what old molds have been sold & resold, so that old pieces would keep coming back decades after first being created, but I think it likely that Westmoreland or Imperial glass companies made some of these before they went extinct about1986. This piece has an 1880s look but remnants of cold paint suggest the prevalent small-town American 'cottage-industry' of hand painting batches of milkglass like women's dresser pieces (pin trays & covered salve jars & glove boxes & cologne bottles) that carried on between 1905 and 1930. But reproductions might also have been so painted. So value will be more in the nice condition & fine impression, hints of age in the paint, and the ageless image of Abe. -Bob
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