Little Things

by Mark A. Nye
Issue 311 - March 1999

Throughout the years it was in business, the Cambridge Glass Co. produced a number of items that can be classified as "little things." Among these are salt and pepper shakers, often referred to in Cambridge catatogs as "salts" or "Salts and Peppers". Even the earliest catalogs contained several pages illustrating the various salt and pepper shakers that were available. During those early years, many of these were not of Cambridge design, the molds coming to the new Cambridge factory from other factories in the NationaL Glass Company.

In 1906 Cambridge issued a "Catalogue of Table Glassware, Lamps. Barware and Novelties." (We know it was 1906 since the date was included on the title page, something that was not a standard practice unfortunately.) This was four years after the factory began operations and salt shakers were important enough to warrant five pages in this catalog. Three of the pages illustrated the shakers full size and the remaining two, half size; the scale being noted on each page. Many of the shakers seen on these pages were also made by other companies and in these Instances, there is no definitive way to determine origin. (In other words, in most instances, I cannot prove that is Cambridge but at the same time, you can't prove that it isn't.) It is my opinion that those items and lines with a catalog number in the 2600 series were probably of Cambridge design while those in he 2500 series were not.

Color information would have been supplied in the separate price list that accompanied the catalog. According to "Colors in Cambridge Glass," the 1903 Cambridge catalog listed Opal, Turquoise, Blue, and Amber with photographer's supplies listed in Green and Amber, while the 1906 price list did not mention Opal and Turquoise. The conclusion was that these latter two colors had been dropped from the Cambridge line by 1906. All of the shakers in the 1906 catalog were produced in Crystal. The Queen shakers are pictured in "Colors in Cambridge Glass" in Opal and Turquoise, probably indicating production before 1906. It a entirely possible other shakers shown in the 1906 catalog were earlier made in these same colors before they were discontinued.

[Webmaster's NOTE: The four pages from the 1906 " Catalogue ..." referred to in the above article can be accessed by selecting from the following list:   Page 1, Page 2, Page 3 or Page 4.]