I just got out a box of older glass to list on eBay and found this unusual Laced Edge bowl in rich ruby red. (The color is deeper and richer than the photo. It’s almost decadent; think of your favorite chocolate and this is similar.) It makes me warm all over just to hold this; it feels wonderful.
Imperial Glass made a whole pattern of Laced Edge in a rainbow of colors. I’ve seen opalescent blue, transparent green and this ruby and there is an amber, pink, opalescent green and clear blue too. Hazel Marie Weatherman has copies of ads and catalogs showing this pattern in her 2nd volume Colored Glass of the Depression Era and it’s interesting to see that ruby red was special in the 1930s. The other colors were $1.50 per dozen and ruby was $2.00 per dozen. I had a deeper bowl like this earlier so at least some people were willing to pay more to get red.
This piece is called a nappy, an older term for a small bowl, and Mrs. Weatherman notes this as part of the Sugar Cane line. That’s not a pattern name that stuck. Today the opalescent colors are grouped into the pattern Katy and the overall line is called Laced Edge.
We know Imperial best for their Candlewick elegant glass but they made several patterns of depression glass too. As you can see, this Laced Edge is unusual and very nice, a super find.