Here’s a rare piece, the butter dish from Jeannette in their luscious ultramarine teal glass. The pattern is called Doric and Pansy. The design combines pansies with a stylized Doric motif.
The detail is incredible. The Doric motif alternates with pansy blossoms around the side of the lid and the rim. The top of the lid has pansies and there is a single large flower blossom.
Now look at the knob. Even the knob has the Doric design molded on every other facet.
Doric & Pansy Utramarine Butter Dish with Lid
Like most depression glass patterns the butter dish is hard to find in Doric and Pansy. Often times basic pieces were giveaways. You could get a cup or saucer for free with a grocery purchase or a stop at the gas station. But they also had pieces that you could buy. Maybe you could save a whole bunch of stamps and send in for serving pieces or a tumbler set. Or you could send in a dollar or two and get the butter dish. A dollar or two doesn’t sound like much, but it was a day’s wages for many in the 1930s.
Because of this, patterns usually have a piece or two that is very hard to find and thus today is expensive. The Doric and Pansy butter dish is one piece that’s hard to find. Oddly, the creamer and sugar are also more scarce than in other patterns. The rarest piece is the iced tea tumbler. Most likely the thrifty housewife could get the basic dinner set – dinner plate, sherbet plate, cup and saucer, berry bowl – as premiums or very inexpensively. And the butter dish, creamer and sugar, salad plate and iced tea required cash to purchase.
One of the things I love about depression glass is thinking about the people who owned it before. How did they get this? Why did they? Did they use it for “good dishes” or was it every day cheer?
The next time you get out a piece of vintage glass hold it in your hand. Now let your imagination help you visualize the lady who owned it first. Wow. Try it.