Last post we talked about sherbets, those lovely pieces of glass, usually stemmed, that people often mistake for saucer champagnes. If you use a sherbet with a stem then you need somewhere to put your spoon. Enter the sherbet liner!
These little plates, usually 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 inches wide, are useful pieces. You can put them under a sherbet or bowl; you can use them for a roll as a bread and butter plate; you can use them as a saucer. In fact many depression glass patterns do not have separate saucers and rely on the sherbet plate to go under a cup. Particularly patterns from Hocking Glass, such as Cameo, either have no saucers or the saucers are scarce or limited in color. This table setting shows Cameo green cups and sherbet plates.
Saucers and sherbet plates are close in size; sherbet plates have smooth centers and saucers have cup rings and are often slightly concave. This Block Optic cup and saucer shows the shape.
For comparison here is the Block Optic sherbet plate.
I was going to write that all depression patterns include sherbet plates but decided to check first. A few of the patterns that are almost exclusively decorative, or that are basically berry or beverage sets, do not. Imperial’s Beaded Block has small plates but they are larger, over 7 inches wide, and the pattern has no sherbet.
Sherbet plates are useful little trifles and show off the pattern. Take a look at a few just to see.
