Tonight I have something for you from the Great Lakes Depression Glass Club meeting we went to yesterday. Jim Bistoff gave an excellent demonstration of a few of the fake Cherry Blossom pieces.
First, the most reproduced pieces are the dinner plates, cups, saucers and small berry bowls. I have personally had reproduction juice tumblers and have seen the reproduction pitchers but apparently these are less prevalent.
Here are Jim’s tips for saucers:
- There are five characteristics of authentic saucers; all real saucers will have all five of these. If your saucer lacks one or more then it is suspect.
- Saucer is no thicker than a nickel. Some real ones are even thinner.
- Edge is smooth, no offset or mold seam. I wasn’t sure what an offset was until the meeting. He had a repro saucer that had a definite bump on the edge of the seam.
- The flower design is in panels around the rim. On the real saucer the patten ends sharply near the edge and doesn’t become indistinct. They showed fakes that had grainy spots near the rim.
- There are 20 arches that go over the panels. These curve smoothly to a point.
- There is a small raised dot of glass that touches the inside edge of each arch.
- The arches on some reproductions are not clear at all. They look like three fingers.
- He didn’t know of any fake saucers that failed all five of these.
The plate in the picture is an authentic dinner plate. The pattern is crisp; leaves are fully defined; it weighed under a pound.