A few years ago, I picked up a set of drinking glasses and matching ice bucket from an antique store down the shore.
This set was made by the Libbey Glass Company. Libbey was, and still is, one of the biggest manufacturers of drinking glasses, and it sold its most popular patterns were sold for decades, so it’s easy to find this pattern, Silver Foliage, on eBay, Etsy, and other sites, especially if you search for “vintage Midcentury Modern glasses.”
According to some internet sources, Silver Foliage was produced between 1957 and 1978. The Golden Foliage pattern was introduced the same year and produced through 1982 – so those vintage Midcentury Modern glasses on eBay could actually be from the Disco Era
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Golden Foliage was so popular that other manufacturers copied the design on their own glasses (my set has Libbey’s cursive “L” maker’s mark on the bottom of each glass). Meanwhile, Libbey was busy putting the two foliage patterns on different styles (like the less pleasing bases on the ones above, probably from the 1970s) and types of glassware (check out the tray and carafe below).
These glasses combined style and practicality. They were affordable (about $4 to $8 for a set of 6 or 8 glasses in the 1960s) and durable, but also shapely and substantial – these tumblers feel good to hold. That is a testament to the skills of Freda Diamond, a prolific designer and consultant who began working for Libbey 1n 1942. The shape of the glasses is, as the MOMA has recognized, truly Classic (see below); the graphic designs on the glasses were not always so timeless (see also below).
Libbey’s history goes back over 200 years to the New England Glass Company, but in 2020 (when I acquired these vintage glasses), the company declared bankruptcy. They emerged as a privately held company. While the company survives, its workers have not fared as well.
Revised from a 2020 post.
#vintage #glassware #Libbey #mcm #cocktails #1960s #1970s
