Mburg fall 2015 2 of 4 - Millersburg Glass Association · $7,750 up to $20,000. The more rare marigolds show only $7,000 to $12,000 in achieved prices, but far fewer of them have

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Welcome New Members, Glad you are with us!Tom Burns

Ken Chamberlain and Ruby PhelpsCharles & Valerie McFadden

Hello Club members,

I hope you have enjoyed the wonderful summer. Ohio has been very nice but dry. We are heading into the fall season, which is one of my favorite times of the year.

We live in a beautiful rural area, which brings people from all over to take in the turning of the leaves and to experience old fashion living of the Amish communities. Bo and I love to drive the country roads during the Amish harvesting of their crops.

I would like to take this opportunity to invite all members of the Millersburg Glass Club to join us this year for our Fall Gathering and to our auction by Wroda Auction Service.

Jim has a nice selection of Millersburg Glass for the auction, which will be held at The Gardens of Homestead, a most beautiful facility in Mt. Hope. I believe there may be a picture of it in the newsletter. It is approximately 9 miles north of Millersburg on State Route 241. Be sure to check Millersburgglass.com (under photo and events) for times and details.

This is also an election year for three of our board members. Your completed ballot should be returned to Millersburg Glass P.O. Box 30 Millersburg OH 44654, by November 1, 2015.

Bo and I are opening our home to Millersburg Glass members on Thursday from 7:00 to 9:00 for an open house. Some of you have already emailed that you will be joining us. RSVP is necessary and you can do so by emailing your RSVP to [email protected]. We would love to share our collection with you and are looking forward to seeing everyone who is able to attend.

Sincerely,

Randy Jones Fall 2015

Gardens at Homestead- Millersburg Auction being held here for the fall 2015 gathering on Oct 10th 2015 at 9:30AM

The Mighty Mitered Ovals Vase: A Piece with a Past One of the more rare pieces of Millersburg carnival glass is the Mitered Ovals vase. These vases were likely difficult to manufacture as each has a crimped top with a tri-ruffle on top of that. On the wwwcga daily mailing list in early 2009, we held a survey to try and quantify the number of these available. After an exhaustive search, we came up with 26 known vases, with 10 of them being green, 10 being amethyst, and 6 in marigold (which is known to be the rarest color in these.) Of course, rumors persist that more are out there, and two green vases are known in Holmes County in private collections which were not party of the survey in 2009. The vases have a nice size and shape to them. They are each generally 10” in height, and their base size ranges from 4” – 4 1/4”, making them a nice handful. According to Dave Doty’s pricing of modern sales, amethyst vases have sold between $4,000 all the way up to $17,500. The green vases have gone from $7,750 up to $20,000. The more rare marigolds show only $7,000 to $12,000 in achieved prices, but far fewer of them have sold, which makes modern pricing a bit of a problem. At the Poucher auction in Kansas City last year, all three colors were sold in one auction. The amethyst sold for $10,000. The green one sold for

$11,000. The marigold brought $12,000. Possibly the Mitered Ovals with the most interesting past, Bill Richards owned a

green one. He would tell this story about the piece. “This Mitered Ovals vase is probably one of the dearest ones to my heart. I had a real good friend years and year ago. When I built my first auction barn in 1966, he helped me with it. He was a big old boy, a construction worker and a true friend. He had a little problem too, and his problem was his wife. She ran around, she drank, stayed out late at night. He would call me at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning and say ‘come on, we have to go look for my wife,’ and we would go. “He loved carnival glass, and he had a good collection of carnival glass for being back in the 60s. “One night he came out to the auction barn. He said ‘Bill, I need some money.’ “’How much do you need?’ I asked. “He said ‘I need $70, but I’ve got collateral.’ “I asked ‘What’s that?’ “’I’ve got that green Mitered Ovals vase. I’m going to leave it with you. Give me $35.’ “He left the vase and a 1914 Parkersburg BPOE Elks plate with me. $35 apiece I gave him for them. That night, we went down as we normally did to a little restaurant to eat and he came into the restaurant. ‘How are you doing?’ I asked. “’I’m doing great now, Bill,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve got it all worked out.’ “I left him that night. The next morning, I was going to get doughnuts for the kids, when on the radio they said ‘An Ohio man drives to Dayton, shoots wife, wife’s lover, and kills self.’ That’s how I wound up with the green Mitered Ovals vase. I knew he wouldn’t be back for it.”

The piece later went up for auction after Bill’s health failed and he passed away and was purchased by Bob and Sandy Sage of Austin, Texas and is pictured here.

Article courtesy of : Brian Pitman

Photo courtesy of Bob & Sandy Sage. What a BEAUTIFUL vase!

These 3 brothers and sisters all live in same house! STUNNING

New Finds of that great Holmes County Glass!(Better known as Millersburg Glass!)

  Pictured from left to right is Curt Yoder (auctioneer) Dave Ely, Randy Jones and Keith Ely.  This plate has been in the Ely family for over sixty (60) years.

Amethyst Trout and Fly plate purchased by Randy and Bo Jones, on June 16, 2015, at a local auction in Holmes County, Ohio  This plate is from the Ely family estate.

Please send us your “New Find or the “one that got away” story.. We would love to share it with everyone. Email your story to [email protected].

On the way home from Laurieʼs doctor on Monday Aug 31st We stopped at a barn sale. We found this bowl on a rack under 3 china plates for $20.00. It is actually kinda tough. True emerald green 8.25”. We also found a crystal Hobstar & Honeycomb square top vase for $8.00. I guess every squirrel does find a nut sooner or later! Jim Wroda

A treasure lost and then found againThis past spring my sister Amy went to a local auction and purchased some box lots of things. As she was rooting thru a box of comics she won for probably a dollar or two, She's cheap, This was lying in the box. WITH COMICS! Here was a near mint copy of the Antiques Journal Dated May 1970 with the Headline”The Millersburg Glass Story” WOW! She couldnʼt wait to get it to me! Maybe some of you have seen this before, but it was new to me.. It is always fascinating to read articles about the “Millersburg Glass Company” since we all know not every story is alike.. Now Iʼm not going to read you the entire article, but I will put in a couple of my favorite sentences from the article. Remember, ALL of these excerpts are from 1970.. Let see what we got here.....

>>”As an official thank you on the part of the owners, The first piece produced was the now famous Millersburg Courthouse bowl and plate”. ( did you catch that, a PLATE?!!) Where is it!

>>”So fine was the glass fromMillersburg plant, it was often found on the same velvet lined shelves as Tiffany Durand and Steuben quoted Mrs. Walter Rennick, daughter of Fred Gessler.

>> “Crystal and Amethyst were the first colors to be iridized”. I didnʼt know that...did you??

And one more that to this day rings true!>> “ Despite itʼs short life, Millersburg Glass still remains as a GIANT among the glass-making firms of itʼs time. Itʼs products are at an all time high demand by collectors, and there is no indication of abatement of interest in this scarce art glass of the latter day.” Jim here... How true is that statement? If you look at ALL of the Carnival Glass auction results over the years, Millersburg is as strong as ever and sought after by every collector. they may have only been in business a short time, but boy did they make some of the most beautiful carnival glass out there!.. Another note: notice that even in 1970, Millersburg Glass was being referred to in this article as “Art Glass”.We will have this Antiques Journal available to read at the Annual Gathering this fall.

Speech of John Wesley Fenton by Toni Elliott FairMy name is John Wesley Fenton. My Ancestors came to America from Ireland and Canada. I was born May 5, 1869. My parents were James and Jennie Fenton and I have 5 brothers and one sister. On March 25, 1891 at age 22 I married Quindlara Kerr in my hometown of Indiana PA. We had 5 children. Three children who came to Millersburg were Grace, Helen and Nellie. My two other children Hazel, the eldest, and Frank died at infancy.

As a young man I worked with my brothers at various glass factories. We established the Fenton Art Glass Company at Martins Ferry Ohio which was a small plant for glass decorating. With my brothers Frank and Charles we then went to Williamstown WV in 1907 and began the Fenton Art Glass Co. I was president and Frank was Secretary/treasurer. While there I designed the Fenton piece which I named Goddess of Harvest in honor of my wife Quindlara.

Frank wanted to run the Williamstown plant and I was ready to move on. After searching for a good location, I chose Millersburg Ohio to build a new factory in 1908. The town was very receptive to my plans. Fifty acres on the north side of town were chosen. Lots were sold in the glass plant allotment and capital stock of $125,000.00 divided into equal shares of $100.00 were sold. HW Stanley and I were the largest single stockholders. I moved my family to Millersburg and we lived in an apartment across from the court house.

The Millersburg Glass Company opened May 20 1909. It was a state of the art building made of steel, iron,and concrete. The main building was 300 feet long, 100 feet wide and 28 feet from floor to roof without a center support. The smokestack was 80 foot high. I purchased the steel framework for the building at the Chicagoʼs World Fair.

No time was lost in producing art glass tableware and it soon became well known. I produced the crystal first. Pieces were designed to be functional and affordable.

Early in 1910 I made a new discovery and named it Radium Glass. It was an iridescent satin finish which even today glass makers are unable to reproduce.

More than 80 patterns of crystal and carnival glass were produced. The glass became known as carnival glass because of its popularity as prizes at fairs and carnivals. The carnival pieces were in hues of green, amethyst, blue, and marigold. I enjoyed designing patterns. The Trout were drawn from fish from the Killbuck Creek and the Peacocks were inspired by the several Peacocks we kept as pets at the plant.

Trademarks were not stamped onto the pieces and only the carnival glass plate embossed with the Holmes County Courthouse is identified by the word “Millersburg”. All of our pieces have the patterns on their base.

I have traveled alot around the country doing promotions, selling glass, and setting up displays at trade shows. Orders came in from Germany, France, and England. Our largest order was $80,000.00. I enjoyed giving glass as promotional items and buying extravagant items for my friends and family.

Perhaps I was more of an artesian than businessman as the plant filed for bankruptcy closing in June 1911. On September 23rd 1911 the plant was sold to Samuel B Fair and became the Radium Glass Company. S.B. was president and I was vice president and manager. The Radium Glass Company closed in 1912 with our last order to FW Woolworth on May 28th 1912.

After the plant closed the glass was locally unpopular. The value of my pieces increased in the 1960ʼs. In 1967 the only known left to exist Blue Peoples vase sold for $1350.00. In 2006 it sold for $100,000.00 at auction! An Amethyst Peoples Vase ( only 5 are known to exist) sold for $65,000.00 in 2007. Iʼm proud to know that many call my work the “Cadillac of Carnival Glass”.

After the plant closed, I remained in Millersburg. In 1918 my daughter Grace, who was an assistant in the county recorders office, died at age 24 of influenza. She is buried beside my wife and me at the Oak Hill Cemetery. My wife was tragically killed in an auto accident on June 23rd 1921. After she died I lived with my Daughter Nellie Glasgo and her husband on South Monroe Street. After a three month illness, I died of heart disease at her house at 5 oʼclock Thursday January 11 1934. I was survived by 1 sister. The funeral was at the Elliott Funeral Home at 2 Oʼclock on monday afternoon. My son in law, Otto Elliott,was the funeral director. John Fenton holding Thomas Elliott

Millersburg Carnival Glass Association Gathering October 9th and 10th 2015 with the auction Oct 10th at 10:00am EST

*This is held in conjunction with the Holmes County Antiques Festival

Gardens of Homestead Activity Center8216 ST RT 241 Fredericksburg, Ohio ( This is Mount Hope)

(9 miles north east of Millersburg Ohio)

Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015 >>Open House (7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.) at the Jones home. RSVP to: [email protected]. Open to Members Only. ( for directions and RSVP please email directly to [email protected]. )

Friday – October 9, 2015 from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m > Millersburg Glass Association’s Fall Gathering will be held at the Hotel Millersburg in the Buckeye Room.

Saturday – October 10, 2015 The Millersburg Glass Auction will be held at the Gardens of Homestead Activity Center in Mount Hope, Ohio (9 miles Northeast of Millersburg on State route 241 across the road from Homestead Furniture).

***NOTE: The physical address for GPS is: 8216 State Route 241 Fredericksburg, Ohio 44627. The glass preview will start at 8:00 a.m. followed by the auction at 9:30 a.m.

Terms: CAsh & Check. CC's OK w/ 3% clerking fee. Absentee bids welcome. No phone bidding available at this time due to lack of service.Auction will be done in plenty of time for the parade and other Antique Festival Activities

Jim Wroda Auctions Jim Wroda - Auctioneer