Whitefriars glass at its bobbly best.

Joy of joys. I was lucky enough to find another knobbly vase to add to my slowly growing collection of coloured cased glass. I rescued the tall kingfisher blue vase from a second-hand shop earlier this week.

I say 'vase' but since I started to research this type of glassware, I have seen this tall, slim shape described as a lamp base. I'm fairly sure that all three of these glass beauties are by Whitefriars and are from a range designed by William Wilson and Harry Dyer in 1963. Known, for obvious reasons, as the Knobbly range, they were in production between 1964 and 1972. The Whitefriars Knobbly vases and lamp bases were made in a range of plain cased colours, like these, and also in a range of attractive streaky colours.

The vases are satisfyingly heavy and are as good to handle as they are to look at. All the surfaces are irregular, randomly bobbled and are silky smooth to touch. Even the neck openings are rounded and smoothed off. This type of vase must be a dream for interior decorators – they look so good in almost any setting. I particularly like the way you get a glimpse of the clear glass at the base and at the edges. And when you get a couple of different colours together, the effect can be quite stunning....

Textured vase by Geoffrey Baxter for Whitefriars

And here's another tangerine beauty that perhaps deserves a blog-post to itself.

This fine example of 1960s/1970s Whitefriars glass has a wonderful shape, colour and texture. The shouldered neck that mirrors the foot at the base, the vibrant orange colour and the concentric rectangular pattern with the bobbly surface texture give this vase real style. Bright, bold and solid.

The vase is known by Whitefriars collectors as the 'TV' vase but I'm not sure why. Designed by Geoffrey Baxter, this shape of vase was in production from around 1967 to roughly 1973. As well as being made in a range of bright colours – Tangerine, Kingfisher Blue, Meadow Green – there were also TV vases made in more subtle, natural shades, such as Pewter Grey.

There's a lovely Kingfisher Blue example in the Bristol Blue Glass Museum, you can see it here: Blue Whitefriars vase

Whitefriars glass. A tangerine dream.

How about a burst of colour to kick off the new year? And these three small glass vases certainly give us that.

These smart, chunky vases are by Whitefriars and all date from the early 1970s. Not only do the vases have the intensity of that wonderful deep orange colour, they also have such nice surface textures. The square vase has a raised spiral decoration, known as Greek Key, the bulb-shaped vase (known as the Onion vase, I think) is covered in large impressed blobs, and the taller vase has a lovely tactile 'tree bark' surface. The orange colour is known as Tangerine by Whitefriars collectors – and, not surprisingly, there are quite a few of those. There's an excellent collectors site with lots of information on Whitefriars glass, here: Whitefriars collectors site

I can see why Whitefriars glass is as popular as it is. If these three small vases look so good displayed together, you can imagine what impact a couple of large pieces would have.

P.S. If, because of my title, you accidentally arrived here expecting to find something on Tangerine Dream, the mighty fine German electronic music group, my apologies. You could try here: Tangerine Dream official website