Glass is one field of antiques in which there are plenty opportunities for collecting.  To begin with, a great deal was made in the 18th and early nineteenth centuries, not only in Britain but also in Europe and to a lesser extent in America.  Many of the fine styles of the time where copied in mid and late nineteenth century in great quantity, and although it is often possible to tell the copies from the originals, many of these imitations are fine pieces in their selves and well worth collecting. It dos not matter as by about 1980 they begun to be regarded as antiques.

The variety of items made of glass was huge, and it includes drinking vessels,, jugs, sugar basins, salt cellars, scent bottles, sweet dishes, cream jugs, finger bowls, wine coolers, cake stands, fruit bowls, candle sticks, vases, ornaments and decanters.  Rarer pieces include chandeliers, epergnes, plates, table lamps, which balls and yards of ale.

The most prolific use of glass, however, was for vessels associated with drinking, a habit enjoyed by everybody,  you can generally find good examples of 18th or early 19th century glass ware for drinking purposes in most sales rooms or antique shops around the world.  Sets of six, eight or twelve glasses may be difficult to find more than twos or threes,, and even when you do find them, you need to be careful that they are not marriages ( made up sets), that is , some genuine 18th century and some good 19th century imitations.

Drinking vessels, are in fact, the most popular pieces collected, a brief look at the background of these very attractive and functional pieces should help the collector to build up a good array, which if chosen with care, will appreciate with time as well as make the dinner table complete.

The average 18th century glass was made in two or three pieces, that is, bowl and stem in one piece joined to the foot, or bowl, stem and foot as different entities, joined.  The stem in a great many cases is the most important feature, for by its shape you can roughly but only roughly put a date to the glass.  The shape bulges in the stem are called knops, and these varied during the 18th century, the differing styles overlapping.

The most sought after pieces of this period are those with air twist stems, although the baluster stems are rarer, and also opaque twist stems.  These are often but, mistakenly, though to be Jacobean, but the air twist stem did not emerge before 1725, and the opaque twist, created by using enamel, either in white or in colour, did not come until about 15 years later. 

A mid 18th century variation of the attractive twist stems is the incised twist, in which the stem is decorated externally by a number of closely rowed, twisted ribs, an idea which originated in Venice.  Another variation is the mixed colour twist, produced roughly between 1760 and 1780, meanwhile the cut stem, which ran from 1740 for about 70 years, was often done in diamond or hexagonal shaped faucets.  It was very popular, and has been copied profusely form the middle of the 19th century onward.

One feature of the 18th century glass is that they sparkly brightly, unto about 1675 English glass was heavy and dull in shading, but in 1674 George Ravens croft discovered that if lead oxide was added in quantity to molten glass, the resulting glass was very fine and clear.  Two years later he was making these clear new glasses.  The lead increased the density and so enhanced the power of the glass to disperse the light, and what is more the glass bowl usually rang like a bell when rapped..  You would probably not find a Ravenscroft glass on the market, except perhaps an important glass sale, but 17th century glass of this kind is still obtainable in antique shops.

Glasses continued to be made heavy in style until 1745, when a Glass Excise Act was passed and tax put on materials used to make glass.  Glasses after this became lighter and thinner. This tax was followed by later and similar ones having a serious affect on the industry, and the impositions where not lifted till 1845..