ALL: I have actually seen this collection in person. I did an article for our vaseline glass club newsletter in January, 2011. I have seen the collection without the blacklight shining on all of the pieces. I would say that 95% of the glass is yellow uranium satin glass, not a green variety with satin finish. If you take the 228 pieces and multiply by $50 USD, you come up with a little more than $11,000 USD. There are some pieces that are of a higher caliber that were mentioned in the ebay listing, but the majority of the pieces are what I call 'beginning collecting' pieces (candlesticks, plates, berry bowls, compotes, etc). Satin glass looks best when their is no pattern, and most of the glass fits that category.
The sellers contacted me sometime last year and inquired if I knew of anyone who would be interested in buying the entire collection. I did not have a lead for them. The 'world's largest' is a self-appointed title. There may be others who have a larger quantity of satin finished vaseline glass.
In my opinion, the most impressive thing about the collection was the cases where it was housed. The collection is owned by the antique shop owners. It is not a consignment booth antique shop. Everything in the shop is their own merchandise. The collection is the owner's personal collection that he has bought off of ebay. In my opinion, the owners are asking full retail for the collection. This is a collection with no rhyme or reason to maker or age, with the only criteria being that it has a satin finish. There was a lot of Tiffin (U.S. Glass Co.) and Imperial, but there was also modern (in past 15 to 20 years) of novelty pieces (little animals and statues). When I looked at the collection, I tried to think of any pieces in the collection that I would REALLY like to have and to make an offer. I did not consider a single piece in the collection to be a 'rare' piece that needed me to make an offer. I drove to their location (about 2 1/2 hours from me, located in Eureka, VA) just to do an article for our newsletter and I filled a couple of pages with their personal history of restoring the old building and the collection. When they got the building, it has been abandoned for over 20 years, and the back end of it was collapsed and open to the environment. They restored it to 85% original, and they live upstairs from their store. It is a great building with original old-timey wooden floor, brick walls exposed, tin panel high ceiling etc. They had some old photos/postcards of the interior when it was originally built, and restored it faithfully to that look and feel.
The three big cabinets are impressive, but unless you also have a vintage commercial building, the cabinets are WAAAAAY too big to be displayed in a home. I don't recall if the front panels swung out or were on a sliding rail.
If I picker/dealer walked in and wanted to buy the collection for resale, he/she would most likely offer about $3500-4000 USD for the collection. As the pieces are not scarce or unusual in the US, the dealer would spend considerable time trying to find buyers. The caliber of glass in the cabinet is impressive to see that someone has gathered up that much satin glass, but individually, most glass of this value has no bidders on ebay. The owners are lovely people, and it is there collection to sell as they wish. I am just stating an unattached objective viewpoint from having been probably the only person on the glass message board that has actually seen the collection, and who is also an advanced collector of vaseline glass to know it's value from the standpoint of selling off the collection a piece at a time.
Topic: World's largest collection of Satin Uranium Glass for sale! (Read 1549 times)
