Collecting Clear Glass Shakers

Along the way of collecting for me, I have noticed an interesting category of collecting the shakers that I really never gave much thought to.
At times, I would run across a familiar pattern in a clear glass example. Often these pieces are lost in a large gathering of clear glass shakers and are easily overlooked. It’s not totally unusual to find clear glass examples of colored glass shakers, the examples I’m presenting are just much harder to find.
However I do consider them rather rare and a lot of looking can go into finding just one example. I’ve been colleting shakers since 1994 and I’ve only found a handful of examples of the type I’m referring to. Being a rather new collector compared to some, there may be many other unknown examples hiding in collections out there.

Some of these pieces are found in clear shiny glass and other are found in clear frosted glass. A combination of the two types can make a most interesting display that can be very impressive. One may say what’s so hard about finding clear examples of colored or art glass shakers? As said before, it’s not unusual to find clear glass examples of EAPG shakers, usually geometric type patterns or even some art glass pieces. In fact, there are probably more clear glass examples in that category. I’m not talking about those types of examples but examples of patterned glass pieces that are usually found in cased glass, opaque glass, or other types of art glass. There are patterns out there that have been produced in both opaque and clear versions. You will see both and this I would consider a regular production type and would not be what this article is referring to.

Why does there seem to be so few of the clear glass examples? Maybe the line did not pick up much popularity compared to the art glass versions.

Some of the more, I think unusual pieces, that I have found are the Acorn pattern, Forget-Me-Not, Leaf Umbrella, and New Martinsville Many Petals. Even a complete condiment set in the Forget-Me –Not pattern in clear frosted. It makes a very pretty set in that color, or lack there of.
Sometimes clear glass examples are more easily found in sugar shakers and not too often in salt shakers and visa versa.

I know there are others out there including Consolidated’s Florette and various corn/maize patterns to name just a couple. I would suspect if a manufacturer made one pattern in clear, they may have made other patterns in clear.
I’m sure there are many other unknown examples as well, yet to be discovered pieces out there. Like with all collecting, that is what makes it so fun hunting and it would be interesting to build a database of clear glass examples of art glass shakers.

Perhaps other may want to show some other examples that I have not mentioned in this article. It would be interesting to see how many others are out there to be documented.

For those who know me, know that I’m a collector and not a glass researcher. My observations are made from a collector perspective and strictly from my experiences. I’m always open to input and experiences from other collectors as well as glass researchers. Should anyone have additional shakers that fit this category I would love to hear from you.