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Carnival Glass Colours - Amethyst and Purple

Amethyst and purple - what’s the difference? Amethyst has pink tones and is a rather light shade. Purple is a deeper colour with balanced blue and red tones. One of the main colourants was manganese. The list below goes from the lightest shades to the darkest.

Sun coloured purple – very pale, delicate purple base glass which is formed when manganese dioxide has been used as a decolourising agent in the glass batch to offset the residual iron impurities. When exposed to strong sunlight over a number of years, the trace amounts of manganese turn the glass light purple.

Lavender – a pale base colour, but the important ingredient here is the iridescence, which should be lavender in hue, although there are different schools of thought on this!

Amethyst – is a mid tone but the pink is very obvious in it. It can also be found with an opal edge

Purple – a deep, rich, balanced blue and red. A vivid iridescence on this can be called electric.

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Lavender. Tiger Lily, Imperial
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Amethyst. Roundup, Dugan
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Purple. Imperial Grape, Imperial

Fiery amethyst – lots of crimson or ruby red tones – not a balanced blue+red, but more of the red. Some debate about this colour, see Controversies.

Oxblood - a similar /darker version of fiery amethyst. See Controversies.

Black amethyst – when you hold it to the light you can just see a hint of purple. Some debate, again see Controversies.

Black – no purple can be seen when held to the light.
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Purple. Rex, Eda (rare colour for Eda)
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Purple, or Dark. Swan, Crown Crystal
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Black Amethyst. Gateshead, Sowerby
Click any image to look at more colours
Marigold
Marigold
Pastel Marigold
Pastel Marigold
Peach Opal
Peach Opal
Blue
Blues
Ice Blue
Ice blue
Green
Greens
Ice Green
Ice green
Vaseline
Vaseline
Red Amberina
Red, amberina
Amber
Amber
Smoke
Smoke
White
White
Opaque
Opaque
Pink
Pink
Yellow
Yellow
Controversies
Controversies
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