Antique Cranberry Glass
Pink-red Victorian and Edwardian glass, coloured with gold in the batch, made for the table and the dressing table as wine glasses, jugs, vases, epergnes and scent bottles.
Antique Cranberry Glass
Cranberry is glass struck pink-red by adding a gold compound to the batch, a technique known from the 17th century and made in quantity through the 19th for domestic wares. Colour can run through the body, or sit as a cased layer or thin flashed film over clear glass, which spread an expensive colour thinly.
Drinking and serving glass is the backbone of the category. Glasses appear in 38 titles, wine in 36, and the pieces are commonly offered as a pair or a set of six, though sampled sets run to eight, ten, twelve, fifteen and one deliberately mismatched harlequin set of twelve. Jugs and vases follow closely, then bottles, most often scent bottles, then bowls.
Vases, epergnes and centrepieces form another strand, with jack-in-the-pulpit, lily, trumpet, celery and hyacinth shapes all named in listings. Silver or silver-plate turns up often as mounts, liners, frames and stands, and a cluster of those titles carry assay towns and years such as Exeter 1863, Chester 1896, Birmingham 1904 and London 1891.
The dated field runs 1850 to 1930, and 193 of 314 listings carry a clean year. The commonest single label is the unspecific Victorian, with another group given only as 19th century, so titles and dated fields sometimes pull in different directions and read best together. Sixty-two dealers have listed cranberry on Sellingantiques, with around thirty-seven pieces coming to market in a year.
Where The Range Sits
Decoration does most of the work. Engraved, cut and overlay pieces, along with gilded and enamelled ones, sit above plain colour, and the plainest sampled items are undecorated jugs and frilled salts at the bottom of the range. A named decorative genre lifts a piece too: Mary Gregory white-enamelled figures account for 19 titles, and Bohemian and Nailsea pieces are singled out rather than left as plain cranberry.
Completeness counts for as much as ornament. Matched pairs and sets of six or more, jug-and-tumbler groups and decanter-with-glasses groups all sit well above singles, and the larger sets of ten, twelve and fifteen are the ones that reach furthest.
Scale and complexity carry the top end. Epergnes, oil lamps with shade and funnel, tantalus and cocktail sets and floor-standing trumpet vases occupy the upper reaches, while small jugs, salts and tots gather at the bottom. Where silver mounts appear, marked silver with an assay town and year consistently outranks the plated equivalent.
Antique Cranberry Glass Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for cranberry glass, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
Odd things off the table have turned up in cranberry: a glass rolling pin, hand bells, a spirit barrel with a tap, and a 1902 coronation tumbler.
The Antique Cranberry Glass Glossary
- Cased or overlay
- A layer of coloured glass over clear, often cut through to reveal the body beneath. Overlay appears in 11 titles.
- Flashed
- A thin surface film of colour rather than colour running through the body. Listings use phrases like cranberry flashed and ruby flash.
- Liner
- A glass insert that sits inside a silver or plated frame, basket or stand, common in the mounted pieces.
- Epergne
- Branched table centrepiece with trumpets and hanging baskets, named in 14 titles and reaching the top of the range.
- Jack-in-the-pulpit
- A vase with a flared, upturned trumpet mouth, and one of the shapes that turns up as a pair.
- Overshot
- Surface rolled in crushed glass for a rough frosted finish, seen on water jugs. Wrythen, by contrast, means spiral twisted ribbing on body or stem.
Antique Cranberry Glass: Frequently Asked Questions
Is ruby glass the same as cranberry?
In these titles the two words are often used interchangeably, with ruby appearing in 19 of them. Both describe the pink-red colour rather than a particular form or period.
What separates pieces is how the colour was applied: through the body, cased over clear, or flashed on as a thin film.
What period does most of it date from?
The dated field runs 1850 to 1930. Decade labels cluster on the 1880s, then the 1900s, 1860s, 1890s and 1870s, thinning out towards the 1910s and 1850s.
Around half the listings carry Victorian in the title. Edwardian is used only a handful of times, and a further group of entries are given simply as 19th century.
Which forms turn up most often?
Drinking glass leads, with wine glasses offered as pairs or sets of six. Jugs and vases come next, then bottles, most often scent bottles, then bowls.
Beyond those, epergnes, decanters, carafes, claret jugs, cruet sets, comports and trinket boxes all appear regularly.
Does cranberry glass come with silver mounts?
Yes. Silver appears in 41 titles and silver plate in 11, as mounts, liners, frames and stands for jugs, bottles, bowls and baskets.
Several of those titles name an assay town and year, among them Exeter 1863, Chester 1896, Birmingham 1901 and 1904, Sheffield and London 1891.
Where was cranberry glass made?
Origin words are spread unevenly across the listings. Bohemian appears in 20 titles, English in 17 and French in 15, while Murano and Nailsea surface only occasionally.
Many listings give no origin at all and describe the piece by form and decoration instead.
Are unusual pieces found outside tableware?
Occasionally. The archive on Sellingantiques has thrown up a glass rolling pin, hand bells, a Masonic firing glass, a dressing-table display dome and a spirit barrel with a tap.
One enamelled tumbler was made for the 1902 coronation. Cranberry is also combined with vaseline, uranium green, milk glass and opaline in single pieces.