National magazine
mistakes reproduction cut glass for old

In its Holiday 1996 issue, Victorian Homes magazine mistakenly featured a reproduction cut glass bowl and mugs. The pieces appeared three times in a cover story on Victorian holiday punch recipes. Each time it was shown in period Victorian room settings implying it was old.

A caption under a nearly full-page close up photograph of the new bowl states, "The cut glass punch bowl is unusual in that its 12 punch mugs are still intact." The fact of the matter is that the punch bowl and 12 mug set could be purchased new from the Yasemin Cut Glass company for $225 throughout the 1990s. The 1992 Yasemin catalog in Fig. 3 did not reproduce well but it is the identical punch bowl and mugs featured in Victorian Homes.

Yasemin Cut Glass operated out of Colorado Springs, Colorado during the 1980s and early 1990s. The Yasemin catalog stated their cut glass was made near the Black Sea on the border of Russia and Turkey.

No punch bowl in this pattern and shape with these mugs was ever made in America during the Victorian period. All the Yasemin pieces, including the punch bowl and mugs, are strictly East European shapes, cutting technique and patterns.

Unethical sellers may be quick to use this national exposure to "authenticate" the new punch bowls. Remind your collector friends and customers that a photograph in a national magazine is not proof of age or quality. It's another sad case proving many antique authors and publications don't recognize reproductions or warn against them.

Fig. 1 Reproduction cut glass punchbowl featured as Victorian original in Victorian Homes magazine.

Fig. 2 The new piece appeared on the cover and in three photographs accompanying an article on Victorian punch recipes.

Fig. 3 Punch bowl and cups as shown in Yasemin new cut glass catalog, 1992.