April 2016 - Fenton Finders of Greater Kansas City

Fenton Finders of Greater Kansas City
1
The next meeting of the Fenton Finders of Greater Kansas City will be
SATURDAY, APRIL 9TH, 2016 at the RAYTOWN CITY HALL, E 59TH, Raytown Missouri.
The meeting will start at 7:00PM.
We are sorry to report that Ann Fenton’s mother passed away last month.
Please keep Ann and her family in your thoughts and prayers.
We are happy to report that Norma Lampton is doing well after surgery.
Since we have two brand new board members/officers, Jason Herman,
President, and Joy Livengood, Vice President we thought that our members might
want to learn a little more about both. This month Jason Herman, our new
president has kindly written a short article about himself and how he ended up
collecting Fenton. Jason’s day job is teaching but in his spare time after work he
shares his love of Fenton glass with us.
Hello, I’m Jason Herman your club President. I wanted to share a little bit about
myself and my passion for Fenton Art Glass.
My collection grew out of my wife Amanda’s collecting. She was dragging me to
auctions often enough that eventually, I got bit by the bug.
My absolute favorite piece in my collection, is my MTV logo. Ever since I first saw one
in the Fenton 1990s Decade book, I said, “Someday you will be mine.” Well, thanks to
e-bay and my wife, Amanda, I can say I have found my Holy Grail of Fenton. Now, I’m
on the hunt for the larger MTV logo. Who knows when this elusive creature may be
spotted, and captured?
Some of my other favorite advertising pieces include a one of a kind Pepsi Cola hat that
Fenton made up as a sample for Pepsi. As it turns out Pepsi never ended up having
them made, so lucky me. I also love the pieces that Fenton made for Coca-Cola,
Budweiser, Nestle, Amoco, and especially the logo they made for the Heisey collectors
club.
Besides the advertising pieces, I also love to collect the pieces they made for other
companies. This includes companies like Memories in Glass, Macy’s, Frango from
Marshall Fields, Northwood, Rosso, and Avon.
Amanda and I took a weeklong trip from Kansas City to Nashville and back in
March. We had a great time exploring all the small towns and shopping for glass
wherever we could find it. We learned that small town shops open late, close early, and
aren’t open on Mondays, but we still managed to come home with a carload. We highly
recommend the trip.
2
Thank you Jason. He and Amanda, who is our club’s lawyer, have an
infectious love for Fenton and in the time that they have been coming to
meetings have introduce glass to our members we have never seen before and
were completely unaware existed. How many of us were even aware that
Fenton made a logo for MTV?
We have been very busy again in our latest meeting, with the board
members who are also the club’s officers meeting two hours before the regular
meeting to work on updating the bylaws. When done they will be presented to
the club and voted on. We had thought that it would only take one session to do
the work however it has proven to be more of a challenge than we thought it
would be. However, if it is worth doing it is worth doing well and we think that it
will be many years before it will need to be done again when we finish.
We know that it is early but have you made your reservation for the Gala
yet? Remember this year it will be a week earlier. Reservations can be made by
calling 816-891-7788 or by using the http://embassysuites.hilton.com link to
make your reservations on line. The dates are September 8, 9, and 10 th this year.
Bernie Johnston let us know that the auction is closed and that most of the
pictures for the glass in the auction will be posted on the website now. He is only
waiting for the pictures from one person and all the pictures will be posted.
Thank you everyone for getting that set up for us. We know it is a lot of work to
get the information together and the pictures made so early but it does make
things easier for everyone and the advertising for the auction better when we can
do that. So take a minute of your time to check out our website,
fentonfinderskc.net and check out the glass that will be offered for sale at the
Gala auction.
The group program last month was on Green glass and as you can
see in the photos on page one and page four we had some great glass. We had
some very old Green Carnival glass and Jade Green, some old Green Snow Crest,
and a fairly new Franky Workman and Kelsey Murphy pieces. One member
brought in an Emerald Crest planter from 1951-55 with a Jade plant in it. As
always the examples of Lotus Mist Green were popular. We believe that the
Lotus Mist Green Decanter was made for OVC but sadly no matching glasses were
made. The Show and Tell potion of our meeting was just about as good and the
main program with many people bringing in Easter Hats and Bunnies to celebrate
the Easter Holiday. There was some older glass, a Crystal Dancing Ladies Fan
Vase as well as a San Toy Tray for the #1934 Decanter Set from the 1930’s
3
4
5
as well as a wonder Purple Slag glass bowl. Need we mention the wonderful
Tangerine Diamond Optic pieces? One member brought in an Ivory mini basket
that she found for the extremely high price of five dollars. We should all be so
lucky.
One of the small table displays we are featuring this month shows off the
hard to find Ivy Balls that Fenton produced in various years. The Ivy Balls that
Fenton produced took more than one form as most of the items that Fenton
made did. The one-piece Ivy Ball, which was often a combination of two different
colors of glass, for example the Jamestown Blue Ivy Ball on a Milk Glass base, can
be easier to find than the two separate pieces that this table featured. It is easy
to find the small round vase itself but the diamond shape base is often missing or
damaged. The oldest pieces and the ones most difficult to find on the table are
the San Toy and Wisteria acid etch pieces made in the 1930’s, two, the solid Ruby
Overlay and the Emerald Green were made for other companies in the 1950’s.
While these are very attractive it is difficult to imagine them used to grow Ivy in.
If that was what they were used for. However, maybe that is why they are so
difficult to find.
Need much be said about the second table? It features matching Jade and
Black glass items from the 1930’s and 1920’s. The Ginger Jar lamp and the vanity
set is the only pieces that are not matched on the table and they are very hard to
very very hard to find. The Jade Green Ginger Jar lamp was from one of the
museum auctions and is the only one we have seen. We can be sure since it is
Fenton that there are others out there but the Jade Green Ginger Jar itself is hard
to find. The same can be said about the vanity set made in the 1920’s. While the
vanity set was not matched with a Black set it did combine the Black stoppers
with the Green bottles. It was very common to see this combination of vanity
sets sold in the 1920’s by Fenton. In fact, the most popular Fenton vanity sets
collected today are a combination of colors. Our favorite combination being the
Lilac with Jade Green stoppers. The Jade Green and Black glass does make a very
attractive display.
Our program for April will be Fabulous Fenton Fakes and Would you believe
this is Fenton? Bring in your glass that your brought because you thought it was
Fenton or could be Fenton and then found out that it was not. Or bring in pieces
that you think might be Fenton but are not sure and we will see if their maker can
be determined for you. One of the things that makes it difficult to determine
rather a piece of glass is Fenton or made by another company is that many
6
jobbers such as LG Wright had their own moulds and would have different
companies make glass from the same mould. The only way to tell who made the
piece is to know the colors each company produced. To add to the confusion
each and every glass company would copy the others if they were making
something that sold well. That is why we need glass experts to id some of our
glass. And to make it more fun also bring in pieces that you have that most of us
would not recognize as Fenton. Jason can bring in his MTV logo again! Many
pieces That Fenton made for other companies can be very difficult to id as
Fenton, many pieces that were in Fenton’s regular line can be difficult to
recognize as Fenton because it may not be popular or because they made so few
of the items Fenton collectors just don’t know about them. This should be a fun
as well as educational program.
Janet Wilke is bringing in the treats this month so be ready to enjoy
something great on our break. Please take care and be ready to enjoy another
busy meeting in April.
See you soon
Jackie Oglesby
Secretary
fentonfinderskc.net
7
8