How to Identify Crystal Glass

April 07, 2023

Find our entire collection of crystal Video Translation: Hi, this is Jennifer with City Farmhouse Antiques and I am here to teach you a little bit about how to identify antique crystal glass. Obviously, this is a beautiful piece of cut antique crystal. What I want to do first is start with what we see all the time which is a regular drinking glass. That helps explain it best. Already you can see the difference in the pieces of glass. With the drinking glass you can see that it is almost a little foggy and it is very light weight because it doesn't have any lead in it. It doesn't have the clarity like this beautiful piece of crystal does. That's because regular glass is 100% recyclable and is made with recycled glass as well as sand, limestone, or soda ash. All those components are then heated up and molded into a piece of glass. I am just using a drinking glass as an example, but it can actually be any kind of glass that has those characteristics. You can definitely see the difference when you are looking at a piece of crystal. I am going to bring this beautiful decanter out. This is a beautiful crystal decanter. Obviously it is crystal because you can see the difference in the clarity. It is very clear and very heavy. Crystal glass has a percentage of lead content anywhere from 2% - 30%. The higher the lead content, the higher the clarity and the heavier the piece. You can really see the difference in looking at even these two pieces of crystal here. This piece of American Brilliant cut glass on the left has the higher lead content. American brilliant cut glass was very popular back in the mid 18th century and was all the rage in England and Ireland and produced in France. In the USA this glass became very popular in the early 19th century during what we call the "American Brilliant period". These beautiful pieces were made and cut with rotating wheels of iron or stone. You can see how not only this piece has a high lead content because of the clarity, but the cuts have all the refractory characteristics making them even more brilliant. That's why they called it American Brilliant glass. Here you can see all the facets on the bottom of the piece. Most of these pieces are not going to be signed, but they will be very thick and heavy. They were made in different types of shapes like decanters, bowls, vases, console bowls, etc. I hope this helps to give you an idea of how to tell the difference between crystal glass and regular glass as you do your thrifting and antiquing. These pieces should be up on our website at www.cityfarmhouseantiques.com. If you don't find something you are looking for be sure and message us in the chat box or message us on the website. Sign up for our newsletter for all the latest finds and be sure to go back and look at our entire collection of videos for great tips on how to identify antiques and different types of glass. We will see you next time.