Lets talk about Cranberry Glass!

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Permalink Reply by Classy Glass on October 25, 2011 at 4:33pm

Cranberry is noted as the greatest achievement in the realms of coloured glass.

It first appeared circa’s 1630-1703 and was the brainchild of Johann Kunckel, a German chemist who developed the additions of gold chloride into the clear crystal batch.

Rubinglas (as the name suggests, in German) is ruby glass.

Due to the high cost of using gold additions, cranberry became an adaption of the colour.

The colour of Cranberry is much more translucent, however this can also become  its advantage, as it allows for much more delicacy and colour depth to be controlled. Shading from colour-to-clear, for example.

True RUBY glass, is more valuable (in the main) to that of Cranberry, due to its content of gold and a  further reason as to why Ruby glass is far heavier. Using the correct methods, the gold can be re-obtained. 

Melt down a Vintage  Ruby Glass vase of say 6k, and it will yeild perhaps 1/2 oz of pure gold, but hey, please do not all rush out now, to pop your Ruby Glass into a furnace or a microwave, seeking a Gold Rush! :-) 

Venetian and  German ruby glass, is particularly desirable. 

England and USA, perhaps the most favourable producers of Cranberry.

Cranberry glass is a type of heat-sensitve glass, hence its variatian of colour, rather than being uniform ruby-red throughout and the gold is less evident within its glass structure and has been replaced as its colouring agent, owing to the ongoing  glass technologies to acieve its wonderful qualities.  

It can be argued that GOLD is more valuable than GLASS ?  And so few factories now use it. 

Why else would a company, NOW produce glass, using an ingredient that they are pursuing from sales?  GOLD! 

I hope this helps? I have much more information about ALL coloured glass types and their formation and I will at all times, assist as best I can to any interested party, for we all of us need to learn from others, continually &  freely, as lovers of the remarkble medium, that is glass...

 Colin, from Classy Glass.

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