Fine wine glasses, for hock or other white wines, were made in olive-green, grass-green, purple, and orange; these are collected by some people for use at table, by some for the collector’s cabinet. The older ones show the characteristics of dimensions and shape which will be described later in this book.
VI. OLD DRINKING GLASSES
These are the favourite quarry of the hunter for old glass. I prefer the more uncommon and out-of-the-way pieces myself, but the old wine glasses, goblets, cordial glasses, rummers, ale glasses, cider glasses, and so forth are so interesting, often so beautiful, and sometimes so quaint, that I do not wonder at the eager collecting of them.
“THISTLE” GLASS, EARLY BALUSTER STEM
Seeking as I do right through this book to state general rules and tests which the beginner may apply to all glass he comes across, I now mention the general features of old drinking glasses.
THE LUMPY STEM
In days when men did not rise from the dinner-table quite so easily as they fell under it, the stem of a drinking glass must be thick, lest it snap in the convulsive hand, and was more safely held when it was also lumpy or bulbous—“knopped” and “baluster”-like are other terms for it: the fingers clung to the knobs.