One difficulty with collecting Cambridge Glass vs. Fostoria is the dearth of easy to use reference books. There are several excellent Fostoria pattern guides that show the pattern, list pieces available, production dates, colors. These are easy to use because you can page through if you think you have a Fostoria piece or you can go right to the table of contents and then right to the pages with your pattern.
The National Cambridge Collectors, Inc., produced several reference books, including this one,Colors in Cambridge Glass II. None that I have in my library are pattern guides, showing each pattern by itself. My other three books published by the glass group are essentially catalog reprints. These have tons of information but are not organized by pattern, making them slower to use. (Which I don’t mind since I get side tracked looking at glass anyhow.)
This book, Colors in Cambridge Glass II is organized by color. This is very useful because the authors do a good job pointing out the differences between colors. For example, Cambridge made Moonlight Blue, Willow Blue, Eleanor Blue, Royal Blue and Early Royal Blue, plus 3 or 4 opaque blues. If you can identify the color of your glass it is a good clue to production dates and to patterns. Cambridge tended to make very similar colors over the years under different names and if you are able to judge the fine differences in shade you can often identify your glass.
Some collectors enjoy collecting Cambridge glass by color instead of by pattern. For example, collectors may pursue Crown Tuscan, the translucent pale pink glass, and some enjoy Heatherbloom, which changes from a pink lavender to a blue under fluorescent light. Books like this make it easier to see the fine color gradations and give ideas for what one may enjoy having. Like all good glass books, this combines facts and helpful information with the sense of joy that collecting vintage glass brings us.
I recommend this book if you like vintage glass, even if you don’t currently have a collection of beauty by Cambridge.