Cherry Blossom Depression Glass - Real or Repo Knowing if your Cherry Blossom Depression Glass is real or repo can be frustrating! Here's a few tips breaking down the different ways to help figure it out.
Next one of the common threads in the reproduction of this pattern is the flowering portion of this pattern. On some of the repro’s the flowers look as if your 7 year old drew them! I always thought how am I going to tell this but when you see it for the first time you go “Oh that’s what they mean!” If you have any piece of Cherry Blossom with this type of flower it is a repo. Take a look at the flowers on this butter dish. (I can't insert pictures into the middle of the article so I'm trying to post at the end or check it out on my Facebook TLC Antiques)
In this case you can really stop at the flower identification, but let’s look at a few other hints. In the butter dish lid approximately ¼ inch from the edge starts pattern impression. This impression can also be found on the footed tumblers. When you look at the lines going around the dish it creates the impression of 3 lines. This feature is something that was missed on many of the reproduction butter dishes. You will only find one line going around. Be careful though with this as sometimes the real butter dishes were not filled into the molde properly, or pressed hard enough and the three lines do not go solidly around the lid. Don’t discount it as real for that reason.
Those areas are the best ways to tell if the lid is real or a repo. Remember too, you can have a real lid with a reproduction bottom or visa versa. Let’s look at the ways to tell if the bottom is authentic.
The oily feel we mentioned previously carries through to the bottom as well as the “childish” flowers. Here however to find those flowers you need to look on the rim that goes around the side of the butter dish, where you would hold it. There is only a small section of flower but is easily spotted.
The final test for authenticity would be the pattern on the inside of the butter dish. This comes in two forms. First the pattern of leaves, branches and cherries again has an authentic look to it on the actual butter dish where on the repo the leaves look hand drawn, the cherries are more like round circles on a repo. The biggest give-a-way though is on the actual butter dish base the pattern extends to where the base meets the sides of the dish, but on a repo base the pattern stops approximately ¼ inch in from this point. This leaves a small circular border of plain glass around the bottom. Actual Cherry Blossom Butter Dish base. Notice the leaves with an authentic look to them, the cherries with shading used for authenticity. The pattern of the branch, cherries as well as the tip of the leaves extend to the corner of the base.
