~ Scott Beale
Description
I was thinking the other day about the early days of my carnival glass collecting. It went through my mind how fun it was discovering so many pieces that I never saw before. All of the great colors that carnival glass patterns came in was equally interesting and fun. In those days, the mid to late 1980s I attended an annual carnival glass show put on by the Keystone Carnival Glass club in Pennsylvania. I met many wonderful people who collected carnival glass in that area.
I would like to mention the late Lamar Sharp and how he really was a mentor to me in collecting carnival glass, many years ago.The Sharps were wonderful people and I’m indebted to them for teaching me so much. I have such great memories visiting their house that was filled with so many beautiful examples of this great glass.
They lived in a modest house in Lancaster County Pa. They actually built a huge room off the back of their house for their collection. He had rows of glass on shelves, china cabinets, as well as tables. There were punch sets of every color, water sets and tankards. There were rows of Northwood Peacock and Urn master IC bowls in every color. It went on and on and I would say it was upward of 3,000 pieces of Carnival Glass!
Lamar loved his glass so much, you could just see it in him when he talked about it and one of his favorite pieces was the Butterfly & Tulip bowl. When Lamar passed away, his wife Mary, had an image of this bowl carved into his gravestone. One may think that is kind of strange but in some ways it identified something that was such a big part of his life. They were such nice people who loved to talk about and teach others about this special glass.
Lamar and Mary are gone now as so many of the collectors in that era, however the memories never die.
~ Scott Beale
