Fenton Fine Rib Red Mid-Size Vases

Standard red Fine Ribs are easy to find, but not these mid-sizes. Since I was known for collecting carnival vases, an antique dealer offered me this tall red vase that he found picking at this old gentleman’s house. The gentleman told him that he remembered his wife buying a pair of these vases a long time ago, but couldn’t find the other one, so he thought it has been broken.

A few months later, the phone rang, and…yes, the the old man’s niece found the second vase intact, in a box in the basement and finally (happy ending) the pair has been  re-united!

The colour red continues to attract many of us Carnival collectors. Red Fine Rib vases are not considered extremely rare: if we refer to the Mordini’s prices guides, we should find, year after year, 6 to 10 sales throughout the country. But, in this case, the  unusual size of this vase made it look scarce. In fact, red Fine Rib vases that we usually see for sale at auctions or  conventions are generally 9 to 12 inches tall, but usually 9" or 10". These are tall, graceful and majestic! One is 17 7/8" and the other is 16" tall.

Were these vases stretched more than usual or are they fundamentally different, either in size, shape or pattern? A closer look at them is needed!

Firstly, because of their fine cherry red color, they do “appear” to be a Fenton Fine Rib. Here I refer to Don Moore’s two articles in The Carnival Pump (December 1986 and September 1993) on red carnival in which he states that no other company is known to have produced this pattern in red vases.  

However, when one compares the “Big Fenton Fine Rib” vases with the regular size ones, one notices that the big one is not only taller, but has a bigger base and different pattern detail. 

(Take note that to study these differences, we used the large red vase and also an identical blue one of 17 inches. These vases have also been reported in green, purple and marigold).

First, lets look at the height: the Big red Fine Rib  vase weighs in at exactly 17 7/8"! Now for the first surprise: these tall vases are considerably harder to find than the 9" or 10" vases. In all the researchs we did, only Tom Sprain (1990) mentions a big red vase (16"), and the Mordini’s auction reports mention only  one sale in 1995 for a 17 " one. 

So, with height difference showing regular Fine Rib vases at 9" to 12", and big Fine Rib at 15" to 18", comes the second surprise: regular Fine Rib have a 2 5/8" base, whereas Big Fine Rib have bases that measure 3 3/4". So, if height and base are different, what about the pattern?

Well yes, it too is different! The regular Fine Rib vase has a body made of 6 delicate areas stretched out and each containing 6 fine ribs that appear to form a group of 36 ribs in the vase’s center. However, at each end, the areas bend around  to form a scalloped edge, like the base’s edges on other Fenton’s vases, such as April Shower or Diamond & Ribs. This scalloped edge make it easy to tell Fenton’s Fine Rib vases from Northwood’s, as the latter’s ribs just move right down to the bottom of the piece. Another difference is that Northwood Fine Rib vases have a 3 1/2" base. The scalloped edge effect on Fenton’s regular Fine Rib vases is well illustrated in W. Heacock’s work Fenton Glass: The First Twenty-Five Years (p. 47).

In comparaison, the large Fenton vase is made of 27 ribs that look drop-shape at the top edge and have arrowhead shapes at the bottom. To date we have not seen the regular pattern with 36 fine ribs on the big vases, nor the arrow type 27 ribs pattern on any  small vase. 

So, to produce their Fine Rib, Fenton would have use two different molds, one for each size, depending on the aimed market. This hypothesis is supported by a close examination of Heacock’s fine book on Fenton. Page 83 shows a vase of 14" to 16"  identified   as  product #916 that matches our big vase description, and a  pair of #1126, identical to our small examples. Hence, since Fenton gave different pattern’s number i.d. to these two vases, it seems obvious that they are indeed different products. This begs the question: are these two sizes of “regular” vase, or a “regular” vase and a mid-size one? 

Generally we talk of mid-size vases that have 4" to 5" diameter bases with a guideline of  4" (+ 1/8" or +1/4") being a rule of   thumb.This would mean that the big   red  Fine rib vase with its 3 5/8" base is a  large  regular  vase, and would not qualify for the  mid-size  title.

Some authors however, such as George E. Thomas, a very knowledgeable vase person, have gone below the 4" mark to attribute the mid-size term. In a “Tree trunk” (N) article published in December 1991 in The Carnival Pump and reproduced in our newsletter in april ‘93, Mr. Thomas described Tree trunk mid-size variants with 3 1/2" bases and 13 3/4" heights.

Now with its 3 3/4" base, its height of nearly 18" and its distinct pattern, should we consider this red Fine Rib as a simple variant of the regular Fine Rib or ...a different pattern vase of mid-size in cherry red? This theory would be interesting, as it would give us a second size in the red Fine Rib vase.

The Michel Filion Collection