Depression Glass Collecting

Depression Glass Collecting is the pursuit of gathering Depression glass, the machine-made glassware, often clear or tinted pink, green, amber, blue or yellow, produced in the United States from 1929 to 1939. More than twenty manufacturers, concentrated in the Ohio river valley where cheap raw materials and power made large-scale production affordable, turned out over a hundred patterns, some as full dinner services. Much of it was never sold outright: makers such as Quaker Oats packed pieces into cereal and oatmeal boxes as purchase incentives, and movie theaters and other businesses gave pieces away to draw customers during the Great Depression. Regarded at the time as cheap and ordinary, the glass began attracting dedicated collectors from the 1960s onward, and scarcity built by that demand has pushed the rarest colors and patterns to prices of several hundred dollars, with reproductions still made to meet ongoing collector interest.