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Sooner Glass

Label was found on this item: http://chataboutdg.com/gallery/details.php?image_id=9315

The "Sooner" in Sooner Glass has to do with Oklahoma being known as the "Sooner State", it's not a glass company name.

The company is Central Glass of Spiro, Okalahoma, who made\makes bent\curved glass for windows, cabinets etc. The original name for the novelty glass line Old Hickory Glass, started in 1959 by E. F. Underwood. These items were made from recycled glass and cullet acquired from other glass manufacturers.

I am not sure when they began using Sooner Glass, but I assume it might have been done for the tourist trade, when this glass was available at more outlets throughout the state of Okalahoma and then later across the country in the 1970s, where is was sold at discount stores in their giftware sections for few years. My local McCrory's five&dime store was one who I remember offering it back then.

I don't have any good documentation about what happened next, but suddenly this type of glass, made in the same shapes etc., especially the swans and trumpet vases began showing up, sold with a lot of different names on the labels and researching those name revealed that this glass was being made in a number of different places, states... and still is.

Here is the rundown of what I have collected so far.

Old Hickory Glass, Sooner Glass and then,

Cherokee Glass by Wagon Hill, which had the same exact label as your piece with the covered wagon, just a different line name.

Jolly Time Glass Blowers of Colorado Springs

Marigold Glass of Durango, Colorado

Bcraft of the Ozarks, Fort Smith, Arkansas

Smiths Old Timers of Fort Smith Arkansas, might be the same as Bcraft or another maker in the same place.

I have seen a few other names too, which I can't recall off hand and I don't have those newer notes on the subject available to me at this time.

This same type of glass, same shapes etc., is still being produced in a number of places today, in the southwest U. S. and just over the border in Mexico where it is sold off of trucks and stands along the roadside to the tourist trade.

Now the less interesting part; even though some of this glass has some age and a bit of history behind it, the name Sooner Glass, used generically for any that doesn't still have the original paper label carries a bit of a joke status stigma on the secondary market and is not very highly though of by most glass collectors. Maybe it will take a few more generations and for it to stop being made anywhere for this glass to gain a more positive status.

Given all that; I figured I would still save and share this information, so that it won't be lost and can be passed on, in case maybe one day when this glass catches on in a big way with collectors it will be available.

As always; my information shared here is free for anyone to copy and do with what they like and I need not be credited for it, since I got it from many others over time, and I cant remember all of the names to credit for every bit shared with me.

--- Mike (butchiedog)

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Date:	04.02.2008 07:40
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Added by:	Michael and Darlene

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