Central Glass Thistle Etch Stems

I'm really excited about these stems. They are Thistle etch by Central Glass. Central went out of business towards the end of the depression, 1939, and Imperial Glass acquired some of their molds. Central is best known for their Morgan etch, which has a fairy on a swing, Harding etch, which has two griffins, Balda etch and Frances pressed pattern. They made many other etches besides these.

The etch shown here is Thistle which is intricate. This is a plate etching, where the glass was coated with wax, the design applied by tracing through the wax and then the piece was immersed in acid. The acid dissolved the glass where the design had been applied through the wax. It is called a plate etching because the design was on sheets of paper that were carefully laid onto the surface. It took skill and hand work to position these just right.

There are other Thistle patterns by makers such as Tiffin. Central's is distinctive with the thistle in the center pointing down. Our stem here is the 4 inch tall cocktail and will be listed later this week.