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The
Australian Crystal Glass Company Limited was established during 1914 at
Dixson Buildings, 64 Pitt Street, Sydney, with the factory at Wyndham
Street, Alexandria. The managing director was Nigel C. Barker.
Manufacturing
pressed and blown glasswares, the Head Office was moved to Dibbo
Chambers, 58 Pitt Street, Sydney, during 1916 where it remained until
1922, when the Head Office was at Broughton House, 181 Clarence Street
(corner King Street), Sydney. Also trading as Crystal Glass Limited, this
firm amalgamated with Australian Glass Manufacturing Company Limited.
A new
factory was built on the site of Smarts Glassworks, later to become the
Zetland Glass Bottle Works, which was opened in February 1925. The
Wyndham Street factory continued to operate. Now known as Crown Crystal
Glass Company Limited, an agency was developed with the parent company at
420-428 Spencer Street, Melbourne, which operated until 1959 when it
moved to Booker Street, South Melbourne. During 1963 Crown Crystal Glass
Company Limited became a division of Australian Consolidated Industries.
Since then this firm has further strengthened their monopoly in the glass
industry by joining forces with an American firm to trade as Crown
Corning Limited, 866-882 Bourke Street, Waterloo.
Crystal
Glass Company Limited produced most of its carnival glass in the mid to
late 1920s. Of their most famous carnival glass patterns, the
'Kingfisher' was registered in 1923, while the 'Kangaroo', the 'Swan',
the 'Emu', the 'Kookaburra', the 'Magpie', and the 'Waratah' were
registered in 1924. Production of most of these patterns had ceased by
1929. A 'Koala' pattern and a 'Lyrebird' pattern were also registered in
1924, but appear to have never made it into production - at least none
have surfaced so far. The 'Kiwi' pattern was registered in 1926.
Like
most other carnival glass manufacturers, Crystal Glass Company Limited
made carnival glass in a variety of shapes, including small and large
bowls, compotes, cake salvers, pitchers, tumblers, sugar bowls, creamers,
butter dishes, vases, float bowls, and flower frogs. Under the Crown
Corning label in later years, items were also manufactured under the 'Gem
Lustre' label.
Carnival
glass by Crystal Glass Company Limited was made primarily in two colors -
'marigold' and 'dark'. 'Marigold' is an orange iridescence on clear
glass, while the base glass of 'dark' can very from light purple through
to black, with a silvery iridescence. A few aqua based marigold pieces
exist, and these have a light aqua color to the glass around the base
only.
If you
would like to see some photos of Australian carnival glass please visit
our Gallery pages.
Some of the information on this page was extracted from
the book 'Australian Carnival Glass Valuation Guide' written by Ken
Arnold, and is reproduced with Ken's kind permission. For details on this
book please check out our Library page.
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