Today you not only get your holiday puzzle but a little history lesson on vintage glass ornaments as well.
Anyone who collects vintage Christmas ornaments knows that the caps are one of the key indicators of age. Obviously you can't go by the caps alone because anyone can take an old cap and put it on a new ornament, but together with the colour and shape can help you date an ornament.
1800's
The first glass ornaments, called kugels (German for "spheres"), originated in Germany in the 1840s. The same time my red brick cottage was built! These heavy, hand-blown ornaments didn’t have removable caps; instead, they had metal loops directly wired for hanging.
Caps began appearing later when ornaments became more popular and production became more sophisticated. The first caps were simple and utilitarian.
Early to mid 1900's
German glassblowers were *the* source for ornaments. In the early 1900s they introduced fancy caps made of thin, stamped metal. These caps are crimped and have floral-like patterns stamped on them. (A lot of new caps are based on this old design with imprinted flowers on each of the caps scallops.)
The caps weren't standardized and a lot of them were hand-fitted to the ornament necks. Because of this, if you have older ornaments without caps, they might be hard to find replacement caps for.
World War II era
The war caused a disruption in German ornament production. Seeing an opportunity the U.S. started manufacturing ornaments. Enter the ubiquitous American-made "Shiny Brite" ornaments. Caps from this era were usually very basic and simple made of thin aluminum or cardboard because of the same war-time material shortages. Shiny Brites used lightweight metal caps with the company name stamped on the top of them.
During this time Germany was still producing ornaments but without the silvering (which they couldn't get). These unsilvered ornaments are now very collectable wartime ornaments.
The pink ornament on the lower right of my collection is an example of this type of collectible ornament.
Hi Karen,
Really liked the super cool history of ornaments. The old ornaments are the best. We still have a few from my mother-in-law's collection. New ones are nice enough but old ones just seem to have a bit more "sincerity" as Linus from the Peanuts might say. My favorite is the one with the red and green "flower" on it.
I like the red plaid one. I'm glad for the history on ornaments. My oldest are from the 1940s, I think. I'm going to do some research now.
Difficult to pick a favourite ornament. It's a toss-up between the large pink one with the indented centre and the blue one in the upper right corner.
MERRY BELATED CHRISTMAS
AND
HAPPY NEW YEAR
2025
From San Antonio, Texas
Sofía González Parks
PS: I, absolutely love your page,
I have been following you for years and learned so much from you!
Infinite thanks and pleeeaase, never stop!
sgp
Thanks Sofia. :) I plan to keep working for quite some time. ~ karen!