Fowl Deeds, Collectible Glass Covered Chicken Dishes and Their History

At Finders Keepers Antique Mall today, I took a stroll to count the chickens. These ones won’t hatch anytime soon, I’m talking collectible glass chickens of every shape and size. Suddenly, there seem to be cool chickens in every corner. That made me curious enough to do some research.

Collectors are strange beasts, we not only love what we collect we want to know about it. I started researching glass chickens, aka hens on nests and the facts behind these pretty things are amazing.

They are very collectible and the prices for even lovely examples are still low enough to let beginners find great examples in every size and color.

No one is sure where the great chicken craze started, Europe or America, but the precursors to our glass chickens were ceramic and porcelain pieces from Germany, France, England and elsewhere overseas. American’s introduced affordable pressed glass during the Victorian era running the porcelain pieces out of town cost wise.

Chickens on nests really took off with “The Great Mustard Craze”, as glass chicken guru Shirley Smith, puts it. Chickens on nests with their covered tops were the perfect vessels to contain mustard and act as marketing premiums, every house had to have one.

Interestingly, it can be very tough to figure out what you have exactly chicken-wise because as glass companies went out of business their moulds were sold to other companies. For instance Tom Mosser of Mosser Glass which opened in 1959 bought the moulds from Cambridge glass which had folded and then he bought LG Wright Chicken molds, which are now all Mosser moulds and chickens. 

As glass companies have gone out of business or merged or been sold, the moulds have changed hands. They have been copied, duplicated or just outright sold to another company.

Apparently there is a romantic myth that talks about itinerant glass workers stealing moulds and taking them to other companies where they would pour slag glass hens at days end from whatever bits and pieces of glass were around. This doesn’t work because moulds are heavy ungainly things for one, and you most definitely cannot mix glass types.

Shirley Smith has documented 50 companies that made glass hens and she says there are probably 40 more to add to that list. There are 191 different documented sizes and shapes from 2 inches to over 8 inches long and in every color under the rainbow.  The finishes range from iridized to frosted, fired on paint and cold paint and even in lead crystal. The sky is the limit chicken wise.

It should be noted that there are no ‘fakes’ per se, but there are reproductions and replicas and only the savvy collector who has done the research will know the difference. There are even rabbits and cats on nests for the covered dish fan to find.

If you are chicken on a nest fan, come and visit Finders Keepers for enough to fill your own henhouse. Chickens? We got 'em.