Fostoria had a long tradition of making stunning glass shapes that they used for decorations and sold undecorated for dinnerware and more. During the 1950s and into the 1970s Fostoria’s go-to pattern was Century.
Century pieces are round; cups and some serving pieces are footed and the primary design element is the curlicue rim. You can spot Fostoria Century by the little C shapes (C for Century).
These saucers show the design.
The Century candle holder carries the C motif into the shape of the center section.
Fostoria made a full dinnerware set in crystal and a full set of serving, accessory and decorative pieces such as this lily pond. Lily ponds are wide, shallow bowls to float flowers, but they make outstanding fruit bowls too. Fostoria made two sizes of Century ponds, the one shown is the larger. They included lily ponds in several patterns with long production life spans such as Romance.
The stemware is a little clunky for my taste but the bowls and other accessories are lovely with graceful shapes.
One pattern similar to Century is Lariat from Heisey. Lariat had large loops on the rim like this caramel dish.
Heisey made a full line of dinnerware, stemware and accessories in Lariat and they used it for decorations too. I have only ever seen accessory pieces like the caramel dish above and the marshmallow bowl (yes, really, a bowl for marshmallow) below.
Athena is another Heisey pattern that has a curlicue rim, Athena used S shapes. Heisey made it earlier, in the 1940s and I don’t think it was as successful as Lariat since we seldom see pieces.
We will cover Century and other patterns with fancy rims in future posts.