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Controversial Imperial Patterns - Part 2
Controversial IMPERIAL Patterns - Part 2
Tues. June 30, 2009 we emailed Roy Hieger for some inside information on the DIAMOND BLOCK lamp shades. He has been researching / writing / collecting carnival glass shades for many years and is an obvious contact for such help! True to form, Roy obliged with the following details.
Tues. June 30, 2009, 6:14 PM
Dean,
Would you believe---When I read your email I was sitting beneath my office ceiling fan, a fan that has four Diamond Block shades, one marigold, one clambroth, one smoke, and one frosty white. I'll try to get a photo of it and send it to you.
Diamond Block was Imperial's #699, & was produced in the early 1920s, under the name Prisms Crystal. It was designed by Phillip Ebeling, who also designed Fostoria's American line. In one catalog from the mid 1920s #699 was called Triangle, and may also have been known as Lincoln. In the 1930s it was called Mount Vernon, and was one of Imperial's best selling patterns, second only to their Cape Cod. In 1940 the Mount Vernon name was dropped because of a conflict with the Cambridge Glass Co., and the pattern, thereafter was marketed as Washington. That's the name it is listed under in the Imperial Glass Encyclopedia, Vol. 111. M-Z. That catalog has 4 full pages (618-621) of the different shapes produced in the Washington pattern, but does not show the lamp shade. Two shades, one marigold, the other smoke are however, shown in the color section on page 727. The very rare 12” cylindrical vase is shown, in marigold, at the top of the preceding page.
Carl Burns does not mention a lamp shade in his discussion of the Diamond Block pattern, but he does list the shade in marigold, in the Price Guide section.
The Archer's, in their blue book of Imperial catalogs from 1904-1938 use the Mount Vernon designation, and have 2 pages (152-153) of B&W illustrations. Although this is probably the best book for identifying Imperial's lamp shades (18 pages of B&W illustrations), the Diamond Block shade is not included.
I'm not sure who first called this pattern “Diamond Block”, but I suspect it was Marion Hartung. She shows a salt (or pepper) shaker on page 53 of her book #5, and states that the pattern first appeared in 1891, and that the carnival / iridized shaker was probably made from the old / original mold. She attributed the pattern to one of the U.S. Glass companies. The shakers, just as drawn by Mrs. Hartung, are shown on page 153 of the Archer's blue book.
My lamp shades do not show a mark of any kind. The stemmed compote and vase I have show a smaller version of a Diamond Block pattern on their bottom, and nothing else on the vase. The compote does have a many pointed star at the center of the bottom, the star the size of the compote's stem where it joins the base. Perhaps there was something like the star on the base of the S&P shaker, and was called a flower by Mrs. Hartung.
Roy
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| DIAMOND BLOCK Enhanced Fan! - Courtesy Roy Hieger. |
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Clambroth
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Smoke
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Marigold
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Imperial's DIAMOND BLOCK Shades - # 699 - 4.25 in. diam. x 5 in. high.
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For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height---to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ~~~ (Ephesians 3:14-19)
Should you care to contact the Frys, their email address is:
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