Alley Agate glass items

[wvrons]

Many people are aware of Akro glass items like the flower pots, ash trays, etc.  Alley also made many other glass items along with the marbles.  It was some competition with Akro. 

The best known Alley glass items other than marbles are the Chiquita children's dishes. The Alley factory in Glass Factory Hallow at Pennsboro WV was know by local people as the dish factory. Every child girl or boy who came by the Alley marble factory in Pennsboro received children's dishes free. 

The most common Alley dish sets are Chiquita. Most were sold as being Akro. There are two totally different style Alley children's dishes. One is Chiquita which the cups are more tapered down to the bottom. The other style Alley dishes are Little Orphan Annie which are more round top and bottom. Lots of these are translucent. The box sets of Chiquita when original also contained a set of plastic forks spoons and knives in a rolled cloth. Also included was a table cloth printed with Chiquita. I only know of one found so far. It is pictured below. 

The fork, knife and spoon set in the Chiquita box set. 

The Chiquita folded table cloth below.

Orphan Annie Box set below. I know of four.  Notice the difference in the dishes style. 

Alley boxed Tea for six set. I know of three. 

Alley Tiddley Winks box set. The glass dish in the center was made by Alley. These are not super hard to find. 

Alley Bubble box set.  Hard to find. 

There is also a Alley Pastry box set. I forgot to get a picture of it. 

Almost if not all these box sets of dishes and sets with a glass dish made by Alley are from Pressman. Alley never put his name on any product. 

 

 

[wvrons]

Alley Agate small 1 1/4 inch tall flower Thumb pots. They are slightly larger at the bottom than Akro Thumb pots. None are marked Alley. If they are marked Braun Corwin they were produced by Alley. They can be solid opaque or swirled or translucent. The most common color is old jade green.  

Below is the wire holder for the thumb pots which spins.

Alley also produced different kinds small glass birds and animals. Below are two yellow birds. The only two found so far. 

Alley made two different birds, scottie dog, goose, terrier dog setting upright, squirrel holding a nut, rooster, donkey, etc. But Smith glass made some almost identical. 

Below pictured are the brass cut outs from which the molds were made. 

 

[Chad G.]

Mmm... Hmm, Yeah Buddy !! Thanks for postin all the Great Pix Ron !!

[Tommy]

Nice Ron love the pics and info. something else for me to hunt....lol

[wvrons]

Some rare Alley items above. I knew where that Chiquita table cloth was for over 10 maybe 15 years. But it finally came home with me from the last Sistersville WV marble show.  Maybe someone will find a second one some day ?  A lady(now decased) who worked for Alley at St.Marys WV.   She filled or packaged the Chiquita boxes and told me at least twenty years ago, that each box set of dishes contained the table cloth. She described it, but I never saw one until this one, about 10-15 years ago. It is still the only one I have seen or heard of.  I told a few Alley collectors about it years ago. One of those found one and finally sold it to me.  I have three sets of the plastic forks, spoons and knife sets. Several of those sets above are rare to find. They were made at the Pennsboro and early at the St.Marys WV Alley  factory locations. We dug thousands of the dishes at the Pennsboro site. Maybe Bill McCaleb will add the Alley glass insulators ? He dug 200 or more of them. 

[William]

Really, really great information, Ron! My fiance loves collecting vintage miniature tea/dish sets AND the miniature glass animals. I just read this whole article too her and showed her your pictures. Super excited too go hunting! Already sounds like Funday Friday begins in Winona then down to Lacrosse. We usually branch off in different directions when treasure hunting so I'll have to write down the above names for her 😊  Rare indeed but one never knows! Thanks again for an outstanding post!

[mibcapper]

lol ... i guess larry kept the pic of me and the pile. it's in larry's book .. with griff's pic ... lol .... but ... i got u on the other side of the shelf we were in. i wouldn't let you slide over my way .... and you .. didn't get mad at me ..  .... and a whole bunch of dishes we got in too. lids ... saucers ... cups .... needless to say .... a glorious time for me .. us .. that we were so fortunate for the opportunity. those were the days ron ...... bill

[mibcapper]

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[Chad G.]

"Thanks" for the pix Bill, good to see ya ........ Them lids (once they made it out of the factory) are what usually got skippered across the water or sent into orbit first thing, nice haul man.

[wvrons]

I see a few of the green and white swirled Tiddley Wiinks cups up there.  Glad we got to do it back then. Not so sure we could do it today ?  Those were long hard days and nights. When we found the honey hole, we could not leave it. Nola and myself worked the day shift 7am to 7pm. Bill and Griff worked the night shift 7pm to 7am. We got about five hours sleep, drove back over a hour and back in the dirt for 4 or 5 days straight, day and night. Good thing we were younger, not young but less than 70. Once in a lifetime memories. 

[Chad G.]

I lucked out and found a Tiddley Winks game from Pressman with an unbroken Alley cup in it this last winter. A dual game box, I believe 90% of it is there, maybe a few Tiddley & Winks missing & the outside of the box is a little worse for wear ??

 

 

[Tommy]

38 minutes ago, Chad G. said:

I lucked out and found a Tiddley Winks game from Pressman with an unbroken Alley cup in it this last winter. A dual game box, I believe 90% of it is there, maybe a few Tiddley & Winks missing & the outside of the box is a little worse for wear ??

 

 

🤯 . Thats awesome

[wvrons]

One I have not seen yet. But Alley sure made that glass cup. Probably at Pennsboro 1933-1937.  Still more to be found, just waiting for a home.

[schmoozer]

1 hour ago, wvrons said:

One I have not seen yet. But Alley sure made that glass cup. Probably at Pennsboro 1933-1937.  Still more to be found, just waiting for a home.

Been looking at these games for 25 years, only plastic cups so far😤😤