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Creamers Are Fun and Useful to Collect

Do you use creamers on the table? Not just for cream, these small glass pitchers make perfect containers for condiments, syrups or dressings and add a little class to the dinner table.

Creamers or syrups, as these small pitchers are usually called, are also fun to collect. Pitchers of all sizes were important elements of dining in days gone by.

Tables were set with linens, china and proper serving dishes, even in the family home and on a daily basis.

The required decorum meant that small pitchers were necessary to serve cream, milk, syrups, gravies and other condiments. Patterned glass, cut glass, colored glass and decorated china pitchers were a part of the mix of tableware used.

According to the patternglass.com, creamers with applied handles were produced from the beginning of pattern glass dishes until sometime in the 1870s. After that almost all creamers were made with molded handles. The earlier ones were flint glass.

There were even individual creamers known as breakfast creamers. These smaller forms of normal sized creamers come in all types of glassware patterns.

Today’s popular Fiesta dinnerware produces their own version of these small pitchers that look like Fiesta’s full size disk pitcher and is available in all colors. I use these often at the table with my grandchildren to teach them how to handle glassware at the table, and they love it!

But some of the fanciest antique creamers are made of colored glass. One example shown in today’s column is an amethyst-colored Croesus ware pitcher, trimmed in gold. This little gem dates to the late 19th century.

Croesus ware is named after the sixth century king of Lydia, known for his wealth.

Riverside Glass Works of Wellsburg produced the beautiful glassware and it is highly collectible.

Introduced in 1897, it came in three colors: clear, emerald green and amethyst. The clear or “crystal,” had no gold trim. According to an antique news column by Helaine Fendelman and Joe L. Rosson, the pieces made in green and amethyst were accented with gilding on the fan and the C-scroll area of the design. These two-colored versions of Croesus are beautiful to display in a china cabinet or on the dining table.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many American glass companies made sets of pressed glass to be used on the table.

These serving sets included butter dishes, salt shakers, jelly compotes, jam jars, toothpick holders, castor sets, berry sets (large master berry bowl and eight smaller individual berry bowls), creamers, sugar bowls, spooners, celery vases, syrup dispensers, cake stands, goblets, tumblers, banana stands, pickle jars, compotes and other pieces of glassware.

Of the three colors of glass in which Croesus was made, the crystal glass examples are the least valuable today and the examples in amethyst are the most valuable. Green Croesus is valued somewhere in between. Fendelman and Rosson are also authors of the book, “Treasures in Your Attic” published by Harper Paperbacks and available online or at second hand bookstores.

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