Introduction to Flint Glass Collecting

Series Summary

Flint glass refers to glass made with lead, a common practice in the United States until the Civil War, when the lead was used in bullets instead. This type of glass is heavy as well as durable and is notable for its clarity and refractive qualities. An easy way to determine if glass is flint is to tap on it-genuine flint glass will ring like a bell. This type of glass was first developed in England by George Ravenscroft in 1675 and further developed by the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers. The various intricate patterns etched into flint glassware such as goblets and pitchers appeal to flint glass collectors. Among these designs are the bell flower, honeycomb, horn of plenty and hamilton patterns.

Watch this free series of glass collecting videos to get the lowdown on what to look for when collecting glass. Our antiques expert Sue Shea explains the history of flint glass and what qualities to look for when collecting it. Learn the value of different types of flint glass and how to display your piece of history after you have acquired it.

Video Transcript

"Here we have a variety of flint glass we're going to talk about this today and these are some nice examples there's a number of patterns in each a number of different shapes in each pattern that you can take a look at. This flint glass is in the era of 1850 a little earlier a little later it was prior to the civil war of 1860 and the reason we call it flint glass is because there is an awful lot of lead in here and when you pick up a piece I can show you an example like this campo, if you pick it up and ring you can hear the sound of the bell and bell is caused from the lead and after the civil war or during the civil war they had to use the lead for bullets so they stopped putting lead into the glass so you lost this tone so that's how you one way you can tell that this is flint glass. And we have another we have another few varieties of flint glass here we can show you today, these are campos and if you look around there's a number 3, or 4 we have goblets, tumblers, they made them in shapes of oil lamps with patterns. We have what they call a spooner a really pretty picture with an applied handle it was the way that the handle they way the handle was applied to the back of the picture. Which was not perfected very well during that period you can tell if you are looking at pictures that the majority of them will see in the back the most of them are cracked the reason there cracked because they didn't have the firing down to perfection, so if your looking at these pictures don't be surprise that you see 9 out of 10 are cracked. We have honey dishes you can take a look at, we have egg cups in different varieties, cover sugar bowls, uncovered sugar bowls, goblets, here's a spill, and I think we have a wine cherry and I think that's all I have today, but we'll talk about the patterns in a little bit."