U.S. Glass Colorado Emerald Green Souvenir Punch Cup, Engraved Hattie 1916, c. 1898–1916

The Piece

An emerald green pressed glass souvenir punch cup in the Colorado pattern of the United States Glass Company, the small round bowl with an applied loop handle raised on three scrolled, shell-molded feet, and engraved across the front in flowing script with a name and a year: Hattie 1916. The bowl is plain and thin, a deep bottle green that goes almost black where the glass thickens at the base and glows like a gem where the light comes through; the feet below are the whole ornament, three fan-shaped scrolls pressed with beading and ribs and joined by a beaded collar, with the remains of the original cold-painted gold still bright in the hollows of the molding. Turned over, the base shows the pressed sunburst that gives the pattern its sparkle on the table. The engraving is the wheel-cut, copperplate script of the fairground engraver, the capital H with its flourish, the date underlined, done while the customer waited.

The cup is in good antique condition. The glass is sound, with no chips, cracks or flakes to the rim, handle or feet, the engraving crisp and legible. The gold trim, which was never fired and never lasts, is worn from the rim and most of the body as it almost always is, surviving in the recesses of the feet and collar. Light wear to the base. It holds two ounces, which is to say a cordial, a sherry, a posy or a thimble collection.

History & Provenance

The United States Glass Company was formed at Pittsburgh in 1891 by the merger of eighteen pressed-glass factories, the largest glass concern in the world at the time, and in 1897 it began a run of patterns named for the states of the Union. Colorado, pattern number 15057, came out in 1898 and was made in clear, ruby-stained and amethyst-stained glass, in cobalt and, most famously, in this emerald green with gold trim, the color that American taste of the McKinley years could not get enough of. Most Colorado forms stand on the three decorative feet seen here; the related footless line, which the company called Jewel and collectors call Lacy Medallion, followed in 1899, and the two are often confused.

The small green cup was the souvenir of its age. From the 1890s to the First World War every fair, exposition, resort, picnic ground and railroad depot had an engraver's stand where a pressed glass cup, toothpick holder or tumbler could be cut with a name, a place and a date while you waited, and the green Colorado cup with its gold feet was the stock piece of that trade, cheap to buy, pretty on a parlor shelf and personal in a way no postcard was. Thousands were sold at the county fairs and Grange picnics of the Midwest and the Rocky Mountain states, each one carrying a name and a year, and this one was bought for or by a Hattie in 1916, the last full summer before America entered the war. She kept it; so did whoever had it after her; the gold wore off and the glass did not.

The cup is attributed on its pattern to the United States Glass Company. The dating rests on the engraving and the construction rather than style alone: the pattern was introduced in 1898, and the wheel-engraved date of 1916 fixes the year the cup was bought and personalized, so the piece is dated c. 1898–1916 and in all likelihood made close to the later date.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

A green glass cup with a name on it is the smallest kind of history and one of the most charming. It sits on a windowsill where the morning comes through it, on a bathroom shelf holding rings, on a desk holding paper clips, in a cabinet of colored glass or beside a stack of old postcards on a nightstand. It is a gift for a Hattie, a Harriet or a Hattie's granddaughter, for a collector of pressed glass or souvenir ware, or for anyone building a shelf of small green things. For a shop or designer client it is the bright, inexpensive, storied accent that fills a cabinet, catches the light in a photograph and sells on the name and the date.