Grape with Thumbprint Band

By Cora Teter

Early in our marriage, when our interest in pattern glass far outstripped our funds to buy it, my husband Bruce and I found six goblets and six sauces for sixty dollars in a Dania, Florida antique shop. In those days, sixty dollars was a prodigious sum, but we could not resist the chance to have enough pattern glass to set a table. We decided to allow Grape with Thumbprint Band to collect us. Bruce particularly liked the sturdiness of this glassware, which has survived in the chubby hands of toddlers and the shaky hands of grandparents through over twenty years of family gatherings. It has graced the table at countless dinner parties and Sunday suppers in the Teter house.

Forms

In our subsequent search for Grape with Thumbprint Band, we have found the following ("d" indicates diameter, "h" indicates high and "p" indicates petals in base flower). Measurements are to the outer most edges to the nearest eighth of an inch. Bases of all forms except the goblet have a multipetaled flower with varying numbers of petals.

Covered bowl - 8" d, 6 1/4" h, 36 p
Covered butter ­ 7 1/4" d, 5" h, 24 p
Covered sugar- 3 3/4" d, 5 1/4" h, 22 p
Creamer with lid - 4" d, 5 1/4" h, 18 p
Goblet - 3" d, 5 3/4" h, plain base
Mug-2 3/8" d, 33/4"h, 16 p
Sauce-4 1/8" d, 1 1/4"h, 18 p
Toothpick-l 7/8" d, 2 1/2" h, 16 p

In addition to the first five forms on our list, Ruth Webb Lee in Early American Pressed Glass lists a spoonholder and syrup jugs in several sizes (216). In Early American Pattern Glass, Alice Metz mentions the same forms, and adds an open sugar and tumbler to the list (81). Wallace Homestead Price Guide to Antiques and Pattern Glass increases the list of available forms with addition of a berry dish (cover bowl?), celery vase, and toothpick holder (513). Mollie McCain calls the pattern Grape with Thumbprint in The Collector's Encyclopedia of Pattern Glass, She reports that an "extended table service including salt shaker, toothpick holder, cup, covered compote, and bowl in crystal, colors and milk glass" are available (300).

Pattern Description

The character of the glass ranges from bright and clear to a dark-hued heavy quality. In American and Canadian Goblets, Doris and Peter Unitt picture two goblets (227). The heavier goblet they call Grape with Thumbprint Band and speculate that it may be older than the lighter goblet, which they call Grape with Thumbprint Band - Variant. Some pieces have sharp distinct impressions that render the twigs, tendrils, and veined leaves clearly visible. The stippling in these pieces gives the leaves a silvery appearance. Some pieces have such poor impressions that the leaves, twigs, and tendrils disappear, leaving only a few faint grapes to hint at the pattern.

On all the forms, a tendriled twig supports two pendent leaves with conical bunches of eighteen to thirty-four grapes (represented by hobnail-like bumps) hanging in the middle. The creamer and water pitcher have longer cascades of six leaves and two grape bunches.
Eight clearly defined panels frame the grape bunches. On the goblet, bowl, mug, and sauce, the panels end in arches at the top; on the butter, sugar, and pitcher lids the panels are arched at both top and bottom. In all other instances, the panels have straight-line tops and bottoms.
The butter base has panels but no pattern other than the circular multipetaled flower that appears on the bases of all pieces. On the toothpick, sauce, and on each covered piece, a band of vertical oval thumbprints decorates a flared flange. The goblet and mug have a thumbprint row immediately above the grape panels with a one-half inch band of clear glass from the thumbprints to the rim.

Clear handles on the creamer, water pitcher, and mug have six facets.
Kamm illustrates the creamer (an exact miniature of the water pitcher) in this pattern, which she calls Grape with Thumbprint (295). She speculates that the ledge inside the rim once supported a metal or domed glass lid. The two creamers in our collection, although we bought them in far apart times and places, both came with lids that have cherries on eleven panels rather than grapes on eight panels. The finials on these lids, with their concave top surrounded by twelve vertical convex segments, do not match those on other Iids, which resemble two eight-sided Hershey kisses joined bottom to bottom. In Pattern Glass Mugs, Mordock and Adams picture next to a Grapevine with Thumbprint Band mug a Cherries/Sweetheart mug (24). Perhaps, with both patterns produced by the D.C. Jenkins Glass Company, the factory made double use of the cherry pattern's lid. In our antiquing, we occasionally saw covered bowls and sauces in the cherry pattern that closely resemble the shape of the Grape with Thumbprint, only with more rounded panels and overall shape.

Dating

Authorities date the manufacture of Grape with Thumbprint Band from the 1870s to 1920. In his Goblets I, Millard describes Grape with Thumbprint Band as "Another pattern of the 70's in which many of the later goblets show worn molds" (pl. 84). Lee in her 1947 revision of EarIy American Pressed Glass offers anecdotal information to date the pattern (216). "A dealer tells me that he has a water pitcher and twelve goblets which were purchased from an old lady who bought them sixty-five years ago..." If both the dealer and the old lady spoke the truth, this would date the pattern in the early 1880s. Metz describes the pattern as "Clear non-flint of the 90s" (81). Both McCain, citing Lee (300), and Unitt, citing Lee, Metz, and Millard (227), date the pattern in the 1890's. Mordock and Adams use a 1920 D.C. Jenkins Glass Company
advertisement that appears on page 49 of Just Jenkins by Joyce Hicks, to date the Grapevine with Thumbprint Band mug (24).
In American Pressed Glass and Figure Bottles, Revi, writes that the Indiana Tumbler and Goblet Company in Greentown, Indiana, merged with The National Glass Company in 1899. At that time, David C. Jenkins left Greentown to build the Kokomo Glass Company in 1900 (224). When that factory burned down in 1905, Jenkins rebuilt and began production in 1906 as the D.C. Jenkins Glass Company. George Beam, a designer at the Indiana Tumbler and Goblet Company (199), followed Mr. Jenkins to design for the new D.C. Jenkins Company (224). Perhaps some patterns made by the Greentown factory, which produced glass from 1894 to 1903, also followed Mr. Jenkins to Kokomo. If any readers can share with me primary source material documenting the production of Grape with Thumbprint Band prior to 1920, I would be very grateful. From the initial twelve pieces, our collection grew to twenty-two goblets, twenty-four sauces and at least one each of the other forms in our list. We have not seen a syrup jug, celery vase, cup, tumbler, or spooner (despite my special vigilance for spooners to add to an already ridiculously large collection of that form), nor have we seen milk glass or colored pieces. I would appreciate hearing from any readers who own or have seen these forms in Grape with Thumbprint Band.

Obviously, goblets and sauces are the most plentiful forms in this pattern; however my one-year-old grandson recently made the latter a bit more rare when, having mastered the latch on my dining room cupboard, he developed a sudden and energetic enthusiasm for pattern glass.

Works Cited :

Kamm, Minnie W. EncycIopedia of Antique Pattern Glass. Ed. Sherry Wood. Watkins Glen, NY: Century House, 1961.
Lee, Ruth W. Early American Pressed Glass. WeIlesIey Hills, MA: Lee Publications, 1960.
Millard , S.T. GobIets I. Vol. 1. Des Moines, IA: Wallace Homestead Book Company, 1975.
McCain, Mollie H. The Collector's Encyclopedia of Pattern Glass. Paducah, KY: Collector Books, 1982.
Metz, Alice H. Early American Pattern Glass. Vol. 1. Chicago,IL, 1958.
Mordock, John B. and Adams, Walter L. Pattern Glass Mugs. Marietta, OH: The Glass Press, Inc., 1995.
Revi, Albert C. American Pressed Glass and Figure Bottles. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1972.
Unitt, Doris and Peter. American and Canadian Goblets. Vol. 1. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Clock House,
1970.
Wallace Homestead Price Guide to Antiques and Pattern Glass. 9th ed. Ed. Robert W. Miller. Des Moines, IA: Wallace Homestead Book Company, 1983.