How it all started...
I acquired the first 'bubble' bud vase from my husband. When we first got together we had to reduce the contents of two houses down to one. The furniture was easy, we just chose the best pieces, but personal items with sentimental value was harder, we had to negotiate. His answer to my question of 'You don't really want to keep this vase do you?' was 'Yes'....I wonder if he now regrets this reply !!
The first one
Some time later this rather innocuous little vase became the first of many, and the start of a fascination for the many variations of these vases..... or maybe I should call it an obsession!
So far I have been unable to find any reference to these vases in any glass collectors book and very few in my collection still have a paper label attached. Somehow this has made me even more determined to find out more about them. Whilst I realise that these were and still are inexpensive pieces, made I believe, in the 1960's, I think it a shame that no-one thinks them even worth mentioning. Hence my simple website...in the hope that someone out there has a similar fascination for them.
Observations
After collecting just a few of these vases I soon realised that it was unlikely they were from the same source. Some had a flat 'ground' base, others were slightly concave. The bubbles were quite different, some appeared random, others remarkably even, some went horizontally around the ball and others were vertical or came up in a spiral. Some had bubbles roughly all the same size, whilst others were graduated in size.
The shapes varied from a 'round' to a 'flattened' ball, whilst others were conical or cylindrical in shape.
Colours
The colours discovered so far are varying shades of blue, green, amber, peach, red, amethyst, clear, champagne and smoked glass. Mostly the stems are of clear glass with the colour in the base, but some have a clear base with colour in the stem, whilst others have stems coloured the same as the base. I have also found a few where the colour is encased in clear glass.
Sizes
The smallest one I have found is approx. 132mm high and the tallest approx. 302mm. Although another collector has mailed me to say he has one 354mm tall!
Little and large!
The information shown on these pages has been based purely on my observations.
If you can supply me with any further information, or wish to correct anything, have a similar collection or you know of
any other manufacturer of these vases, I would love to hear from you. Please email me Mail!