Collecting Antique Carnival Glass For Beginners

Antique Carnival Glass is another form of glassware from the depression era. The first and probably most well known maker of carnival glass is Fenton. They began producing carnival glass in the early 1900's. Northwood is also a well know producer of some of the finest antique carnival glass and they began production shortly after Fenton. Northwood carnival glass is usually marked on the bottom with a capital "N" surrounded by a circle. Dugan is one of the hardest types of carnival glass to find. Dugan is also know as Diamond as they were bought out in their later year. Imperial, Indiana and several other glass companies all manufactured a nice looking set of carnival glass.

If you decide carnival glass is an antique you would like to collect you had better do your research as there are many reproduction pieces on the market. Spend some time running through Antique Carnival Glass price guides and reproduction guides to make sure you know the difference between the various types of carnival glass in existence. A Saturday or Sunday stroll through your local antique mall, auction house or flea market is another very good way to learn not only the prices of Antique carnival glass, but you'll soon be able to tell all the makers of carnival glass apart just by looking at them. As with any antique glassware you never want to purchase something that is cracked, chipped or heavily worn unless it is an extremely rare piece.

Before ever getting into the Antique glassware or pottery market you had better know what your looking at and for if you don't want to end up loosing your shirt. Trust me I've been had many times in my earlier years of antique glassware collecting

Collecting Antique Depression Glass

Depression Glass Is another of the many different types of antiqes that I collect. Learning the ins and outs of collecting antique depression glass can be fairly difficult as there are plenty of reproduction items on the market. You can tell a quality piece of depression glass from a reproduction by weight, the way its made, and checking the markings on the bottom of the glassware.

While reproduction depression glass is usually far less valuable than the originally produced antique depression glass, there is still a market for some of it. Some of the earlier reproduction glass pieces are actually just as valuable as the originals. Buying an antique guide for both depression glass and reproduction depression glass is something I highly suggest if you plan on starting to collect this type of glassware.

Usually collectors of depression glass tend to stick with one particular color, pattern, or glass maker. My preference is the Pink Miss America or Pink Cherry Blossom patterns of depression glass. I have nearly a complete set of both types of pink depression glass but will continue to seek out the most rare pieces as time goes by. If you want to learn the value of or recognize the various pattersn there is no better place to start than Ebay. The wonderful world of online auctions has given us collectors a realtime value guide for evaluating our pink depression glass. You can also find some nice examples of Pink Green Amber & Cobalt Blue Depression Glass here