Fenton Glass - Vaseline Glass - Fenton Vaseline Carnival Glass - Vaseline Opalescent Carnival Glass

Fenton's Vaseline and
Vaseline Opal Carnival Glass:
Rare and Scarce Pieces, 1907-1927

A rare vaseline carnival glass
Thistle ruffled bowl made by Fenton, circa 1911.

photo courtesy of  bfa1959

Introduction

             This is the second in a 3-part series of guides on early Fenton vaseline glass.  This section of our guide, Part II, is about vaseline carnival glass made by Fenton in its first two decades of operation.   Part I  focuses on rare early Fenton canary opalescent glass, and Part III is about Fenton's early Topaz stretch glass.  These guides have been made possible by the E-Bayers who have contributed photographs to them.  Please leave feedback by clicking on the button at the bottom of this page. 

Fenton's Vaseline Carnival Glass

A scare 7 1/2" Grape & Cable bowl in vaseline green:
The marigold lustre on the bowl's top is
typical of Fenton's vaseline carnival.

photos by curculiosglass

          Fenton invented carnival glass in 1907 and continued producing it through the 1920's.  Carnival glass is clear or colored pressed glass with an iridescent patina; the iridescent luster was created by spraying glass with metallic oxides after removing it from a mold.  The color of a carnival piece is generally determined by the color of the glass underlying the iridescent layer -- and usually, glass color can be viewed most easily by examining a piece's base.  Vaseline glass is yellow or yellow-green -- and thus, a piece of carnival glass is "vaseline carnival" if its base is yellow or yellow-green and fluoresces bright green under ultraviolet light.  

          While Fenton's early canary opalescent glass (shown in Part I of this guide) is decidedly yellow, Fenton's carnival vaseline glass made between 1907 and 1925 tends to be more greenish.  Ellen T. Schroy, the author of Warman's Carnival Glass (2004, p. 23), describes vaseline carnival as "a light green-yellow".  At his website, David Doty describes vaseline carnival as "yellow or yellow-green" and offers as an example a 1911 Fenton Water Lily & Cattails bowl with legs that are a very washed out yellowish green -- the color of weak green tea (ddoty.com/colrvaseline.html).  The legs on the Grape & Cable bowl featured above are typical of Fenton's carnival vaseline glass.

Vaseline vs. Lime Carnival Glass

   
          Buyers and sellers often wonder when to call a carnival piece "lime green" rather than "vaseline".  How people perceive color is highly subjective, and the appearance of vaseline carnival glass in books and websites varies greatly from one printed page or computer screen to the next.  Carnival glass literature is also inconsistent in its descriptions of various light greens such as "lime green" and "vaseline".  Some authorities seem to suggest that the sole distinction between these two carnival colors is that while vaseline fluoresces, lime green doesn't (see, e.g.,"Is all lime green vaseline?" at ddoty.com/duganartglass.html).  Other authorities describe lime green as a color clearly distinct from vaseline.

Base of a vaseline carnival Fine Rib vase (left top)
with the base of a lime carnival Fine Rib vase (bottom left)
and a lime/vaseline carnival Boggy Bayou vase (right):
All glow bright green under ultraviolet light.

photo by curculiosglass

          Ellen T. Schroy, author of Warman's Carnival Glass,  describes lime green as "a bright almost neon green" (p. 19).  David Doty, by contrast, describes  lime green as "a light color, much like ice green, but with a touch of yellow in it" (ddoty.com/colrgreens.html).  Fenton vases such as the Boggy Bayou vase featured above right are not infrequently described as lime/vaseline because collectors find the two colors too close together on the yellow-green continuum to make the call.  Some collectors, however, would pronounce the above yellowish-green Boggy Bayou vase lime green.  Others would argue that lime is a more saturated and intense shade, closer to that on the base of the Fine Rib vase shown above at bottom left -- that vase's green base lacks any trace of yellow; a layman might call the base "kelly green," and Schroy's words "a bright almost neon green" accurately pinpoint its color.

          To complicate matters, the mere use of a UV light may not settle the question of whether a given Fenton piece is "vaseline" rather than "lime" carnival glass.   As is noted in Parts I and II of this guide, between 1907 and 1912, Fenton used uranium to color green as well as yellow glass.  For example, below is a Fenton green opalescent Boggy Bayou vase, made during this period, which glows bright green under ultraviolet light:

A Fenton green opalescent Boggy Bayou vase, circa 1907-1912,
in daylight (left) and under ultraviolet light (right).

photos by curculiosglass

Similarly, decidedly green Fenton carnival sometimes fluoresces, just as brightly as Fenton's yellow-green vaseline carnival.  For example, Under UV light, the bases on all three of the vases shown two photos up -- the lime/vaseline Boggy Bayou and both the vaseline and lime Fine Rib -- glow an equally intense green under a black light.  Thus, the lime/vaseline distinction in carnival glass seems to us to be a fairly murky one.  For the purpose of this guide, when speaking of Fenton's early "vaseline carnival," we mean glass that is light yellow-green and fluoresces bright green under a black light.

Marigold Luster on Vaseline Carnival

Examples of fluorescence in a vaseline opal carnival Fine Rib vase (left)
and a vaseline carnival Fine Rib vase (right and inset).  When subjected
 to ultraviolet light, the vase at left glows almost halfway up the body,
while the vase at right glows only on the base's underside.

photos by bb4513 (left) and curculiosglass 

        David Doty writes that "vaseline carnival often has heavy marigold iridescence, sometimes making it difficult to detect or, at the very least, preventing you from realizing the glass color at a glance"  (ddoty.com/colrvaseline.html).  Fenton's carnival vaseline vases typically appear to be "marigold" -- a yellow-orange hue -- and show their vaseline coloring only at the base.  When subjected to ultraviolet light, the entire body of a vaseline carnival vase may glow; the Boggy Bayou vase shown in the preceding section, for example, fluoresces from the base all the way to the rim, glowing bright green through the marigold coating.  On other vaseline carnival vases, however, the base alone may glow.  Above right is a photograph of a vaseline vase that could easily be mistaken for marigold; the vaseline coloring is notable only if the base is examined carefully, and under fluorescent light, only the underside of the base glows.  By contrast, the rare vaseline opal Fine Rib vase above left glows nearly halfway up the body.

          Similarly, Fenton's early vaseline carnival bowls and plates may be mistaken at first glance for marigold glass.  On many such bowls and plates, only the base or legs may be yellow-green, and thus the vaseline coloring is easy to miss unless the underside of the piece is scrutinized.  For example, the iridescent lustre of the rare Thistle carnival bowl shown at the top of this guide and directly below makes the piece appear gold with pink and blue highlights.  The pale yellow-green of the base is noticeable only if the bowl is held to a strong light or is turned over:
 
  

The underside of a vaseline carnival thistle bowl,
showing the yellow-green coloring of the base.

photo courtesy of  bfa1959

As shown below, however, if placed under an ultraviolet light, the entire Thistle bowl fluoresces brightly, betraying the vaseline glass underlying the iridescence.  On other Fenton vaseline carnival pieces, the legs or base alone may glow under ultraviolet light.

Thistle ruffled bowl under ultraviolet light
photo by  bfa1959

The Rarity of Vaseline Carnival Patterns

            Fenton's vaseline carnival output was quite extensive, and included more than fifty patterns.  Not all vaseline carnival pieces are rare:  for example, vaseline coloring is not uncommon in the Fenton pattern known as Vintage, while vaseline is considered a scarce color in Grape & Cable bowls and quite rare in Fenton's Thistle pattern.  David Doty's website records that in the last seven years, vaseline Thistle bowls such as that shown above have appeared infrequently on E-Bay:  sales prices have ranged from $155 to $350, only four bowls have been sold, and the most recent sale occurred in 2004 (www.ddoty.com/thistle.html).  By contrast, over the last three years, Vintage bowls of comparable size have sold for between $35 and $85, and Grape & Cable bowls for $40 to $95.

             David Doty's A Field Guide to Carnival Glass (1998) notes that the following patterns are rare in vaseline carnival:   Acorn 7-9" bowl;  Blackberry Block pitcher (one known); Scale Band pitcher (one known); Thistle 9" bowl; and Two Flowers 10" ruffled bowl.  Doty's field guide deems the following scarce in vaseline carnival:  Basketweave Open Edge 2-row small hat (ruffled, two sides up, or jack-in-the-pulpit shape); Blackberry Spray hat (square, ruffled or jack-in-the-pulpit shape); Fine Rib vase; Grape & Cable 7-8" bowl; Horse Medallion bowl (jack-in-the-pulpit shape); Lotus & Grape bonbon; Orange Tree 9" collar-base bowl; Peacock & Urn 9" bowl (ruffled or ice-cream shape); and Strawberry bonbon. 

Vaseline Opal Carnival Glass

             In addition to producing vaseline carnival, Fenton also issued vaseline opal carnival glass.  Vaseline opal carnival was a kind of hybrid of opalescent and carnival glass.  Bone ash was added to a molten vaseline-glass mixture to cause the edges of a glass piece to take on a milky quality.  The glass was then sprayed with metallic oxides to give it an iridescent luster as well.  An example is the vaseline opalescent Peacock & Grape bowl featured directly below.  This bowl, like the other vaseline carnival pieces shown here, fluoresces bright green under ultraviolet light.  Its legs and base are a very pale, diluted yellowish green.

   

A scarce vaseline opal Peacock & Grape
9" carnival glass bowl, circa 1911

photos courtesy of bug54

This Peacock & Grape bowl has what is sometimes referred to as "pastel iridescence".  Fenton's vaseline opal carnival is also found with a golden-orange marigold patina often referred to as "butterscotch iridescence" .  A photograph contrasting the two vaseline opal treatments can be found at the website of the carnival glass authorities Glen and Stephen Thistlewood (geocities.com/carni_glass_uk_2000/fenton_opal.html). 

          David Doty's A Field Guide to Carnival Glass (1998) deems  Peacock & Grape 8"-9" vaseline opal bowls such as that shown above to to be "scarce" in carnival glass.  His website records sales of such bowls in prices ranging from $225 to $450 between 2002 and 2006  (ddoty.com/peacockgrape.html).  In January, 2008, a ruffled vaseline opalescent Peacock & Grape bowl sold on E-Bay for $374.

            Fenton's output of vaseline opal carnival glass was limited to a short list of nine patterns.  These include:  Basketweave Open Edge 8" plates; Boggy Bayou vases, 6" or under in size; Dragon & Lotus bowls; Fine Rib vases; Grape & Cable 7" bowls; Horse Medallion bowls (jack-in-the-pulpit shape);  Peacock & Grape bowls; Strawberry bonbons;  and Water Lily sauce bowls.  Most of these are considered wonderful finds by carnival collectors. Doty's  field guide characterizes the following three patterns as rare in vaseline opal:  Dragon & Lotus bowls, Fine Rib vases and Strawberry bonbons.

  

A lime opal carnival glass Boggy Bayou vase:
This vase fluoresces brilliant green under ultraviolet light.

photo by *treasurehunter*
  

           A final note on Fenton's lime opal carnival.  Like its lime carnival, Fenton's lime opal carnival also often glows green under ultraviolet light.  An example is the above vase:  its kelly-green base fluoresces bright green under a black light.  (For more information on Fenton's Boggy Bayou pattern, see our guide on on Fenton vases.)

     ~ O ~  

Vaseline Glass Guides:

Part I:    Fenton's Canary Opalescent Glass
Part II:    Fenton's Vaseline Carnival Glass
Part III: Fenton's Topaz Stretch Glass Vases
 General Guide to Vaseline Glass 

 ~ O ~

           Many thanks to E-Bayers  bfa1959,  bug54 (Kansas City Carnival) and *treasurehunter*,  for generously contributing photographs of their rare vaseline-glass finds to this guide.  Rights to all photos belong to the photographers, and pictures should not be used without their permission.  Text is (c) 2007 curculiosglass, all rights reserved.  To locate any E-Bayer whose name is mentioned here, or to visit his or her store, simply click on "SITE MAP" on the bottom of your screen, and then click on "Feedback Forum" on the right top corner of the screen that next appears.  Type or copy the E-Bayer's name into the search blank.  To see our other guides on glass, click on GUIDE INDEX.   Please leave feedback on this guide by clicking the button below.