One way people stretch their budgets is by buying reusable items. Back in the day food companies packaged all sorts of products in reusable containers, for example jelly or peanut butter in glass tumblers. One very popular example is Swanky Swigs.
These are clear tumblers with silkscreened designs, most often juice size, about 3 1/2 inches tall, but there are taller glasses too. The ones shown here are all between 3 1/4 and 3 1/2 inches.
True Swanky Swigs are from Hazel Atlas that originally came filled with Kraft cheese spreads. All are decorated, either with designs like the one above or applied solid colors shown below. Hazel Atlas started these in the 1930s and continued into the 1950s. I really like them and we have several. If you are interested in collecting these then you might want to invest in a reference book, one is Swanky Swigs by Moore and Moore. I have not seen this book in person.
We have several of these and I’ll take a couple posts to show them all.
Cornflower Swanky Swigs
There are at least 4 different colors for Swanky Swigs decorated with cornflowers (bachelor buttons). This first one has the most realistic look with medium blue flowers and green leaves. It’s actually a little darker than the photo shows. There is a variation that has very dark blue flowers, no photo unfortunately.
This next one has yellow leaves and flowers. Hazel Atlas used this same design in solid blue and red
Here is the red cornflower glass, I don’t have a photo of the other colors.
Carnival Colors
Look for solid colored Swanky Swigs too. These are clear glass tumblers with solid colors applied inside and out, look at the rim of this green one to see the clear peeking out. I’ve had green, yellow, blue and orange. The colors are bright, thus the “carnival” name.
Look closely to see the ridges near the top. Some of the patterned Swanky Swigs have this same sloping ridge style and others are plain.
Antiques Decoration
There are several decorations that feature antiques, such as coffee grinders, butter churns, spinning wheels, clocks, and in blue, black, red, orange or brown.
Bustling Betty
There are different versions, all with a lady in old fashioned clothes, and in different colors.
Next post we’ll look at more decorations, especially flowers and the very cute Kiddie Cups.