Nice Jugs.

Red crackle glass jug, 6" x 3.5"

Mystery Solved! I was able to prove that this jug and another like it in my collection were made by the Rainbow Glass Company when I found a labeled example. The Rainbow Glass factory was in Huntington, West Virginia from 1942 - 1973. Rainbow did not make glass, at first, only decorated glass made by other companies from 1942-1954. Their glass was decorated with painting, staining and other techniques. From 1954 - 1973 Rainbow made their own art glass until the company was sold to Viking glass. The Rainbow factory burned in 1983. Numerous Rainbow pieces can be found with Viking labels which shows that Rainbow items were popular and Viking continued making them for many years.

I found a version of this jug in red glass at a local thrift shop and thought it might be from a mom and pop glass maker, but when I searched ebay to see if anything similar was out there, I found this exact copy of the jug in red crackle glass from a California seller. The non-crackle version is more red and the crackle version has a bit of orange in it. After finding to nearly identical jugs, a couple of thousand miles apart, I now think it must be from one of the commercial art glass houses, like Pilgrim, Rainbow, Blenko, etc. Hard to date these. My first instinct was 1950s or 1960s, but now not so sure. The first jug I found had a cork in it, so these may have been intended to hold cordials or liqueurs, which is what I an tempted to do with them. I don't recognize the pontil mark, which is just a small circle and I could not find an exact match for the glass colors used in the two jugs amongst those I found on ebay. These are gorgeous little jugs, elegantly simple in design and in beautiful colors, so really interested in finding out who that maker was/is. I collected art glass for many years and really don't have space for more, but could not pass these by. Any help appreciated.

Sorry for the lousy image. This was the ebay image. I'll get a better shot.