Collecting 101: Slag Glass! The History, Popularity, Value & How To Identify! Episode 15

What's going on guys? Welcome back to Collecting 101. And after a really tight voting last week on what video to feature, the winner for this week is going to be Sly Glass. Now just to not confuse anybody, there is other names for Sly Glass. Some people call it Marbled Glass, Mosaic Glass, and I believe there's two other names as well. But we're just going to stick on to Sly Glass today just to not confuse anybody. So we're going to delve into the history, the popularity, and the value of Sly Glass right now. So let's start it off with history. So before we get into the very brief history of Sly Glass, let's tell you exactly how it's made. Now Sly Glass gets its name from slag, which is a byproduct of the steel production. So the first way you can make Sly Glass is when iron ore is smelted. In that process, the remaining residue is a glass-like material that takes on different colors depending on the minerals and elements that are present in the iron. Now another way you can produce Sly Glass is with the lingering scraps of glass that are left over in pots at the end of each day at glass making factories. They get melted together to form really unique pieces of Sly Glass. In the late 1870s, the Sowerby firm of England filed one of the first patents for Sly Glass. Now they made a purple Sly Glass which was called Blackberries and Cream. And those pieces are some of the most sought-after pieces on the market for Sly Glass collectors right now. Now soon after, they started exporting their Sly Glass to the United States. And before you know it, multiple companies in the U.S. started producing their versions of Sly Glass. Some of the first two were Atterbury and Chilinor. Now due to the massive success that Sly Glass was at that time, other companies weren't far behind to start producing their versions. You had the Boy Glass Company, Westmoreland, as well as Imperial started producing some amazing pieces of Sly Glass. The most sought-after Sly Glass on the market today comes from more high-end companies like Tiffany, Steuben, or Roycroft. Now those companies are producing lamps, lampshades, jewelry boxes, as well as picture frames. And man are they fetching a lot of money for those. And we're going to talk a lot more about that in the value section of this video. But man if you guys really want to make a statement purchase, I'm telling you getting one of those Tiffany lamps are just they're so gorgeous and they're just absolutely amazing. But you're definitely going to pay out for those because they are they're worth a lot of money. Now in more recent memory companies like Fenton, Summit, and Mosser hopped on board and started producing their versions of Sly Glass as well. But those are a lot newer you know and some of that older stuff from like Atterbury is the ones you're going to want to be looking for. So yeah guys that's really the history of Sly Glass. I mean that's just when a lot of companies started making this. I mean and even the process of making Sly Glass is just really really cool if you ever get a chance to watch it. I mean it is quite amazing. So all right guys let's hop on to the popularity section of this video. All right so in the popularity section today we're going to break it down into three separate categories. I want to talk about popular colors and popular products. And then I'm going to highlight some of these makers of Sly Glass. I mean because there's a lot out there and I want to make sure I show you guys so many of these beautiful pieces especially if you want to start collecting Sly Glass. Now let's start off with popular colors. Now the most common color you can get is purple. And as I'm showing you guys here it is still very beautiful but it's one of the most produced colors of Sly Glass. Now the next one we're going to talk about is brown. Now this is also one of the earlier colors that were made but it is not as common as the purple. Now these next few colors I'm going to show you are some of the rarer colors of Sly Glass. First off you got your blue then you have your green and then these next two colors are actually more modern colors. So if you see these colors these are actually newer produced Sly Glass. So the first one I'm going to show you is red and then the last one we're going to show you today is orange. Now as you guys can see these colors are absolutely gorgeous and Sly Glass is such a unique thing to be collecting. So let's now talk about some of the most popular products of Sly Glass you can get. Now this is the most high-end pieces of Sly Glass are going to be your lamps. Now most of these companies like Tiffany are going to be your producers of these and man they can fetch a lot of money. So these are somethings you want to definitely be on the lookout for. Now your more common pieces you're going to see are ones like these like your vases and then after that more your candy dishes or another one like your hands on a nest like we talked about last week. And this last little category I wanted to throw in was really just I'm going to call it the accent pieces because there's a bunch of different really cool things like toothpick holders and you know just regular boots. I mean there's so many different things that Sly Glass is made into. I wanted to use this last thing to kind of bunch a bunch of things together so again I can show you guys so many different things of Sly Glass because there are so many cool pieces out there. All right and then the last thing we're going to talk about today in the popularity section is we're going to highlight some of these makers and show you some of these pieces that some of these guys make because they do an absolutely amazing job with Sly Glass. Now the first one we're going to talk about is Westmoreland. Now these guys produce a very quality piece of glass and as you guys can see here and it is some of the most sought after pieces of Sly Glass on the market today. Now the next one we're going to talk about is Boyd. Now Boyd to me I've always run every time I've run across Boyd it always seems to be in smaller pieces so you'll get like the smaller versions of Sly Glass but again there's also very collectible and Boyd is a good quality company as well. Now the next one we're going to talk about is the Atterbury company. Now we did talk about these guys in the history section of this video. For being one of the first producers of Sly Glass I definitely wanted to highlight them and show you some of the pieces they came out with because they are some of the most sought after ones on the market today. All right and then the last two we're going to talk about are Tiffany and Steuben. Now these two companies are two high-end companies that produce very high-end glass. Now so when you get a piece of Tiffany you do know you have quality in your hands and it is definitely going to fetch you a lot of money either paying for it or selling it whatever you're doing with it. As I'm showing you guys here with a bunch of these different pieces you really can see the unique touch that goes into these pieces and I'm sure you guys will appreciate as much as I do. All right guys that's really the popularity section today. I didn't want to go too deep into you know my choices of popularity. I wanted to highlight as much as possible because Sly Glass even from these different companies brings such a different look. It really does from the older stuff which I'll help identify a little more in the value section of this video to the newer stuff is still very beautiful as well. So all right let's get on to the value section of this video. All right so let's get into the value of Sly Glass. Now you know me I like to start off with condition and just like any other glass where we collect it's no chips, no cracks, no repairs. That's going to give you the most flawless piece of Sly Glass as well as it's going to help you retain the most amount of value. All right next up let's talk about how to identify Sly Glass. It shouldn't be just white streaks in glass. There should be a lot of uneven marbling. Now that uneven marbling the more of it is actually going to equate to more value. Now the more mixtures of colors in there again is something you're going to definitely be looking for because you know if it's just one little small streak it's not going to be worth as much as the same piece with more marbling so keep that in mind. Now when we talk about colors there's four colors that are considered to be antique colors for Sly Glass. That's your brown, your blue, your purple, and your green. Now your newer colors like we talked about in the popularity section is actually going to be red and orange. Now again you can collect whatever part you want to. If you want to collect orange and red and blue I mean it's just fine. I mean Sly Glass is made for so many different colors and so many different collectors that I don't think you're going to go wrong collecting a little bit of new with a little bit of old but at least this will help you differentiate the ages of your Sly Glass. If you see a lot more green it's going to be a lot older than if you see orange so definitely something to keep in mind. Next up let's talk about the maker's marks. Now I'm going to give you a list of companies that are considered to be antique Sly Glass makers. I'm going to have to look a little bit on my notes here so forgive me for that but you have a company Sowerby, you got Alterberry, you got Chalinor, Northwood, you got Elkrow and Gate. Now those guys are actually marble producers as well and very famous marble producers so if you want to look more into them they have some really beautiful marbles out there as well. Next up is Westmoreland, Tiffany, Roycroft and Stupid. Now all of those three companies are considered antique Sly Glass makers so definitely something you want to keep in mind if you're looking to stay more older those companies are going to be ones you want to look for. Now newer companies like Summit, Mosser, Fenton and Boyd those are newer companies um newer or they produce newer Sly Glass so definitely something to keep in mind too. Again as you guys know Fenton and Boyd are just high-end glass companies as well but they just got a little later into the game for Sly Glass so they're still worth a lot of money or can be worth a lot of money but they're just newer producers of it so it just depends on what you're trying to stay towards if you want to stay to newer or older producers of Sly Glass. All right so let's talk a little bit about your monetary value of Sly Glass. Now you can get Sly anywhere from five dollars to thousands of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars really if you want to get into like the Tiffany lamps and whatnot those things can go for crazy amounts of money so which is a really good thing actually that the price range is like that because it gives people that want to be just small end collectors like hey I want to buy things for five to twenty to thirty dollars you can do that with Sly Glass but if you want to be a high-end collector too they give you that option as well because if you want to go out and get some of those Tiffany lamps which we're going to talk about in a couple minutes they go for thousands of dollars and man do they look gorgeous they have some of that metal inlay and I mean it just looks absolutely amazing so I mean it really gives you a lot of options on where you want to collect your Sly Glass. All right and you guys know this is my favorite part of the video today it's not going to be the top three most expensive it's going to be the top three very expensive because the top three most expensive I'll tell you guys right now are all those Tiffany lamps and there's every one of them and so I don't want to give you guys three lamps and you know I want to give you more of a variety of these top threes so these are not the top three most expensive but the top three very expensive. So number three on their list is actually a Tiffany jewelry box that sold for over $850 and that green marbling man is just absolutely beautiful I mean I just love that piece. Now number two on our list is actually an Americana Sly Glass lamp now this sold for over $1,000 again very cool piece I mean you can't go wrong with these lamps and the number one on our list is a Handel Sly Glass lamp now this sold for over $2,700 and like I was telling you guys before that the top three would have been a whole bunch of Tiffany lamps for thousands of dollars I mean some of these pieces I've heard of at auctions I just couldn't find pictures of them so I don't want to give you guys false information there but I know some of these lamps I've heard of at auctions selling for $10,000 to $15,000 to $20,000 so I mean there's definitely pieces out there that are worth more than this but these are just the top three I could find that's why again we're going with very expensive not most expensive. Now these next leasons I'm going to show you guys are more of your you know eBay listings that are hey you can get into this hobby for five to ten to twenty dollars with Sly Glass I mean there's a lot of great options out there to really start collecting this stuff it's not all about high end all the time so if you're looking to get into it trust me there's a lot of great prices out there for Sly Glass. All right guys that's our video on Sly Glass today I mean there's a very brief history of it the popularity highlight all those pieces hopefully it gave you guys a lot of options to start your collecting a Sly Glass because there are so many beautiful pieces out there then of course the value right now Sly Glass is super popular it's going to hold a lot of value and it's going to give you a good return as well as a great time to buy really because it's not super expensive to buy but if you're looking to sell you're going to get good money out of it too so definitely something to keep in mind and so that's it guys thank you guys all so much for watching if you want to like this video comment below what do you guys like what do you guys like about Sly Glass what did you guys think about some of those pieces do you guys collect Sly Glass does anybody in your you know your family collect your friends collect Sly Glass let us know and then of course if you guys get some time subscribe to the channel we're running close up to 30,000 I mean this is amazing you guys are so awesome with comments and likes and shares I mean they're absolutely amazing we appreciate everything you guys are doing and I'm going to keep this streak going on letting you guys pick this video so last week was Sly Glass again we had a couple close contenders this week so Sly Glass is gone let's vote in a new video for our collecting 101 video next week so fill those comment sections up with all of your ideas that you want me to tackle with collecting 101 so let's do that and you guys know when I talk about collecting it's always about your memories over money see you guys later