West German Pots have been the absolute pinnacle of our retro passion for the past five years or so. Pretty much every nook and cranny of our house has at least one (or five) German pots lurking. However, more recently, there has been an invasion of a more glassy kind…
- The ‘invasion’ of glass…
The first addition to the new collection was the clear vase on the furthest left. Aidan found it a car boot sale, I think, for hardly any money at all. We didn’t know what it was for a while, but then found very similar ones in a Miller’s Antique guide under Dartington Glass. At the time, Aidan had realised it was well-made (he has an eye for these things) but we were quite pleased to find that verified officially!
- Close up of the Dartington Glass piece
There’s more information about the company on their website , but basically they were established in 1967 as a trust by a wealthy American woman called Dorothy Elmhurst and her husband Leonard. The idea was to support local rural crafts. The designer that I most like is Frank Thrower. Not only does the man have the best name ever for a crafty type designer, but he also made beautiful retro designs for these little square vases. Lovely jubbly.
This is another set of Dartington Glass we have:
How retro are they?!
We bought these from a car boot sale in Stafford – where we tend to get a lot of retro goodies. Clearly, the people of the West Midlands haven’t clicked on to the vintage revolution! Anyway, bit of a story to the purchase of these…
We were running a stall in Stafford. Aidan had been for a look round and came back with various locations of things for me to go and look at. I managed to get him a Wade house he was after for a bargain, but completely forgot his instructions for the orange glass vases…
Well, I thought I’d done a great job sweet-talking the stall owners into letting me have the vases for £3 for the pair. Until Aidan told me his parting words had been,
“They’re asking for £2 for them, but I don’t know if they’re worth it.”
Obviously, they were worth it and a bit more to me. Never mind, still a bargain. And to give myself some credit, Aidan hadn’t noticed they were Dartington when he’d looked. Probably my only saving grace on the purchase.
- Check that redeeming label out!
The other two little pots on the mantel piece aren’t Dartington, but we’re not yet sure what they are:
We really have no idea who they are made by. They were both bought from a shop in Crosby for a few pence. The purple one is better made than the green one, which is more obviously moulded but that’s about all I tell you really. Anyone recognise either of them, let me know, and I’ll get on the research trail!
One other retro piece of glass we have is a Chance Handkerchief vase:
This is yet another item that a few years ago I would have dismissed as tat, but now I love it! I’m imagining for the future a whole shelf full of them in a vintage styled kitchen… I’m saving a post about Chance glass for when I eventually get some more of them. They’re fairly abundant on Ebay and at car boot sales, so I’ve set myself a limit of £5 for buying them. This makes it a lot more rewarding to get them, I think.
So, Dartington and Chance form the basis of the collection. Next level is to obtain a Whitefriars piece. Now that could even take over from the Roth pot as the pinnacle piece of our collection…
Little Owl Ski 
Well little owl ski, the green one has the name on the bottom, I think its from denmark from memory. The Frank Thrower one is from Totnes, we were together when we bought it, I think we bartered over the price and were very much in two minds about buying it for £8, turns out it was a bargain, we didnt have a clue what it was at the time, I just said it was well made and we both liked it. AH xxx